Every time that Verhaeren reads his poetry, this re-birth of the first creative state is renewed. _It is in the first place a deliverance from pain, and in the second place it is pleasure_. Again and again the word darts along like a beast let loose; in the wildest rhythm; in a rhythm that begins slowly, cautiously; quickens; then grows wilder and wilder; grows to an intoxicating monotony, an ever-increasing speed, a rattling din that reminds one of an express whizzing along at full speed. Like a locomotive--for in Verhaeren's case one has to think in images of this kind, and not in outworn tropes as of Pegasus--the poem rushes on, driven only by a measure which reminds one of the short explosions of an automobile. And as a matter of fact the scansion of the locomotive, its restless rattling, has often been the cause of the rhythmic velocity of his verses. Verhaeren himself is fond of relating that he has often, and with delight, written poems on railway journeys, and that the cadence of his verse has then been fired by the regular rattle of the train. He describes wonderfully the rapture of the speed poured into his blood by the whizzing past of trains. The whistling of the wind in moaning trees, the dashing of the foaming sea along the shore, the echo a thousand times repeated of thunder in the mountains, all these strong sounds have become rhythm in his poems; all noisy things, all violent, swift emotions have made it brusque, angry, and excited: Oh! les rythmes fougueux de la nature entière Et les sentir et les darder à travers soi! Vivre les mouvements répandus dans les bois, Le sol, les vents, la mer et les tonnerres; Vouloir qu'en son cerveau tressaille l'univers; Et pour en condenser les frissons clairs En ardentes images, Aimer, aimer, surtout la foudre et les éclairs Dont les dévorateurs de l'espace et de l'air Incendient leur passage![4]