Now that he steps boldly into life, his first problem is to come to an understanding with the world around him, with his fellow-men, with the city itself. But it is not the city he lives in which interests him in a provincial sense, but the ideal, modern city, the monster city in general, this strange and uncanny thing that like a vampire has snatched to herself all the strength of the soil and of men to form a new residuum of power. She crowds together the contrasts of life; grades, in unexpected layers, immense riches over the most wretched poverty; strengthens opposing forces, and goads them to hostility, goads them to that desperate battle in which Verhaeren loves to see all things involved. The grandeur of this new organism is beyond the æsthetics of the past; and new and strange before Nature stand men also, with another rhythm, a hotter breath, quicker movements, wilder desires than were known to any association of men, to any calling or caste, of a previous time. It is a new outlook which not only sweeps the distance, but has also to reckon with height, with the piled tiers of houses, with new velocities and new conditions of space. A new blood, money, feeds these cities, a new energy fires them; they are driven to procreate a new faith, a new God, and a new art. Their dimensions, terrific, and of a beauty hitherto unknown, defy measurement; the order that rules is hidden in the earth behind a pathless wilderness. Quel océan, ses cœurs? ... Quels nœuds de volonté serrés en son mystère![1] cries out the poet in wonderment as he strides through the city and is overpowered by her grandeur: Toujours en son triomphe ou ses défaites, Elle apparaît géante, et son cri sonne et son nom luit.[2] He feels that an enormous energy proceeds from her; he is conscious that her atmosphere rests with a new pressure on his body, that his blood quickens to keep pace with her rhythm. Merely to be near her starts the thrill of a new delight. En ces villes ... * * * * * Je sens grandir et s'exalter en moi, Et fermenter, soudain, mon cœur multiplié.[3] Involuntarily he feels himself becoming dependent on her, feels this grandiose coupling of energy producing a similar concentration of all his forces in himself too, feels his fever becoming infectious like her own, and feels--with an intensity unknown to any other poet of our days--the identity of his personality with the soul of the city. He knows she is dangerous, knows she will fill him with all restlessness, overheat him and excite him, confuse him with her hostile contrasts. Voici la ville en or des rouges alchimies, Où te fondre le cœur en un creuset nouveau Et t'affoler d'un orage d'antinomies Si fort qu'il foudroiera tes nerfs jusqu'au cerveau.[4]