This is the good hour when to my chair my love will flit As breezes blow, As smoke will rise, Gentle, slow, She says nothing at first--and I am listening; I hear all her soul, I surprise Its gushing and glistening, And I kiss her eyes. This is the good hour when the lamp is lit. When hearts will say How they have loved each other through the day. And one says such simple things: The fruit one from the garden brings; The flower that one has seen Opening in mosses green; And the heart will of a sudden thrill and glow, Remembering some faded word of love Found in a drawer beneath a cast-off glove In a letter of a year ago. But the poem which indicates most clearly the tremendous change that his nation’s tragedy has brought to Verhaeren, is that inspired by the demolition of the Cathedral of Rheims. A year ago, it may be, Verhaeren would have thought of this cathedral merely as a beautiful piece of architecture, as an ancient and lovely landmark. Now that it has suffered from the cannon of an invading army, he remembers suddenly the high use for which it was intended, the destruction of the sacred images and vessels reminds him, in spite of all his sophistry, that these things were not mere works of art. Once more, as in those far-away years when, with Georges Rodenbach, Charles Van Lerberghe, and Maurice Maeterlinck, he learned of literature and life at the Jesuit College of Sainte-Barbe, he is able to understand that most necessary of all acts, worship. The poem is so significant, so important to all who desire an insight into the psychology of Verhaeren and of literary Belgium, that I venture to quote here my own translation of it. It by no means does justice to the beauty of the original. THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS He who walks through the meadows of Champagne At noon in Fall, when leaves like gold appear, Sees it draw near Like some great mountain set upon the plain. From radiant dawn until the close of day, Nearer it grows To him who goes Across the country. When tall towers lay Their shadowy pall Upon his way, He enters, where The solid stone is hollowed deep by all Its centuries of beauty and of prayer.