strength, activity, enthusiasm; in _Les Forces Tumultueuses_ the mysterious dynamics of union shining through all forms of the real; in _La Multiple Splendeur_ the ethics of admiration, the joyous relationship of man with things and with himself; and in _Les Rythmes Souverains_ he has celebrated the most illustrious heroes of his ideals. For life has long since ceased to be for him mere gazing and contemplation: Car vivre, c'est prendre et donner avec liesse ...................avide et haletant Devant la vie intense et sa rouge sagesse![1] Description, poetic analysis, has gradually grown into a hymn, into 'laudi del cielo, del mare, del mondo,' into songs of the whole world and of the ego, and of the harmony of the world's beauty in its union with the ego. The lyrical has here become cosmic feeling, knowledge has become ecstasy. Over and above the knowledge that there cannot be anything isolated, that everything is arranged and obeys the last uniform law of the universe, over and above this knowledge rises something still higher--over the contemplation of the world rises faith in the feeling of the world. The glorious optimism of these works ends in the religious confidence that all contrasts will be harmonised; that man will more and more be conscious of the earth; that every individual must discover his own law of the world in himself, the law that makes it possible for him to apprehend everything lyrically, with enthusiasm, with joy. Here Verhaeren's poetry far exceeds the boundary-line of literature; it becomes philosophy and it becomes religion. Verhaeren was from the very first an eminently religious man. In his childhood Catholicism was the deepest feeling of his life, but this Catholicism had perished in the crises of his adolescence, his religious feeling had given way to the rapt contemplation of all new things, to ecstasy inspired by the aspect of life. But now, when Verhaeren returns to the metaphysical, the old yearning is reawakened. The old gods are dead for him; Pan is dead, and Christ too. Now he feels the need of finding a new faith, a new certainty, a new God for the new sensation, this identity of I and world. The new conflicts have created a longing in him for a new equilibrium; his stormily religious feeling, determined to believe, needs new cognition. The image of the world would be incomplete without the God who rules it. All his yearning goes out to this God, and it finds its fulfilment. And this knowledge gives him the highest joy life can have, the loftiest pride life can bestow: Voici l'heure qui bout de sang et de jeunesse. * * * * * Un vaste espoir, venu de l'inconnu, déplace L'équilibre ancien dont les âmes sont lasses; La nature paraît sculpter Un visage nouveau à son éternité.[2]