Only from this brotherhood with all things accrue the possibilities of being a modern poet. Only by self-surrender to everything that is could Verhaeren attain to so grandiose a conception of contemporary manifestations, only thus could he become the poet of the democracy of cities, of industrialism, of science, the poet of Europe, the poet of our age. Only such a pantheistic feeling could create this intimate relationship between the world of self and the world surrounding self, the relationship which subsequently ends in an unparalleled identity: only so despairing a 'no' could be transformed to so enraptured a 'yes,' only one who had fled from the world could possess it with such passion. FOOTNOTES: [1] 'Un Soir' (_Au Bord de la Route_). [2] 'Le Forgeron' (_Les Villages Illusoires_). [3] 'Saint Georges' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). [4] Goethe's _Faust_, 1. 784. [5] 'Les Saintes' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). [6] 'Les Saintes' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). [7] 'Saint Georges' (_Ibid_). [8] 'Le Forgeron' (_Les Villages Illusoires_). [9] 'Why weepest thou, O storm?--Down, memories! Yonder in the smoke pulses the great city's trembling heart! A million grumbling tongues are crying for peace and happiness: worm, what would thy pain! Yearning no longer trickles lonely from breast to breasts, a quiet source and no more: to-day a _nation_ groans, and with wild, shrill voices demands clearness--and thou still revellest in the joys of melancholy? 'Seest thou the reek and smoke threatening yonder over the forest of flues and chimneys? Upon thy dreams of purity falls the scorn of labour! Feel it: labour is struggling, eaten up with dirt! Thou hast but wantoned with thy yearning, thou hast but enjoyed thyself in turbid heat; pour out the power that has flowed in upon thee, and thou shalt be free from the burden of guilt!'--'Bergpsalm' (_Aber die Liebe_). [10] 'La Foule' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). [11] 'Celui du Savoir' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). [12] 'La Forêt' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). PART II CONSTRUCTIVE FORCES LES CAMPAGNES HALLUCINÉES--LES VILLAGES ILLUSOIRES --LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES--LES DRAMES 1893-1900 CONTEMPORARY FEELING J'étais le carrefour où tout se rencontrait.--É.V., 'Le Mont.' Verhaeren's deliverance from the stifling clasp of his crisis was a flight to realities. He saved himself by no longer fixing his gaze rigidly on himself and deeply probing every feeling of joy and torment, but by turning to the world of phenomena and flinging himself on its problems. He has no longer to stand in solitude facing the world; his desire is to multiply himself, to realise himself in everything that is alive, in everything that expresses a will, an idea, a form, anything at all animated. His poetic aim now is, not so much to analyse himself to himself, as to analyse himself in the whole world.