Then, in such poems, the _rhythm of modern life_ will break through. At this moment we must remember what rhythm really means. The rhythm of a being is in the last instance nothing but its breathing. Everything that is alive, every organism, has breath, the interchange and resting-space between giving and taking. And so breathes a poem too; and it is worthless if it is not a living thing, if it is not an organism, a body with a soul. Only in its rhythm does it become alive, as man does in his breathing. But the diversity, the originality of the rhythm only arises from the alternation of these drawn breaths. Breathing is different in those who are calm, excited, joyous, nervous, oppressed, ecstatic. Every sensation produces its corresponding rhythm. And since every poet in his individuality represents a new form of inner passion, his poem too must have this rhythm of his own, the rhythm which expresses his personal poetic peculiarity just as characteristically as his speaking expresses an individual accent and dialect. To understand Verhaeren's rhythm we must remember this basic form of the poetic feeling at the heart of him; we must compare it with the feeling at the heart of those who have gone before him. In Victor Hugo there was the earnest, great, soaring rhythm of the loud speaker, of the preacher who never addresses individuals but always the whole nation; in Baudelaire there was the regular hymnic rhythm of the priest of art; in Verlaine the irregular, sweet, and gentle melody of one speaking in dreams. In Verhaeren, now, there is the rhythm of a man hurrying, rushing, running; of a restless, passionate man; the rhythm of the modern, of the Americanised man. It is often irregular; you hear in it the panting of one who is hunted, who is hurrying to his goal; you hear his impact with the obstacles he stumbles against, the sudden standstill of intemperate effort exhausted. But with him the rhythmic energy is never intellectual, never verbal, never musical; it is purely emotional, physical. Not only the end of the nerve vibrates and sounds; not only does the language shake the air; but out of the whole organism, as though all the nerve-strings had suddenly begun to sound the alarm, burst the terror and the ecstasy of fever. His poem is never a state of repose--no more than the multitude is ever quite repose--it is in a true sense rhythm, passion set in motion. You feel the excitement of the man in it, motion, the covering of a distance, activity; never contemplation comfortably resting, or dream girt with sleep. And as a matter of fact, it is from motion in the physical sense that nearly all his poems have arisen: Verhaeren has never composed poetry at his writing-table, but while wandering over the fields with a rhythmically moved body whose accelerated pace pulses to the very heart of the poem, or while rushing along through the din and bustle of streets in great cities. In these poems is that quicker