Clasped about my neck and harbouring my breast, Ah your so dear hands now and their slow caress, When I tell you, in the evening, how my strength Grows leaden day by day with weight of feebleness! You wish it not that 1 become shadow and ruin Like all those who obey the gloomy night's behests, Though it be with laurel in their mournful hands And glory sleeping in their hollow breasts. Ah how time's harsh law is softened by your love And how your lovely dream disconsolate tears would stem; For the first and only time you nurse with lies My heart that finds excuse and gives you thanks for them. Which, however, knows all ardour is in vain Against what is and all that must be in the strife, And that perhaps there is profounder happiness To end thus in your eyes my lovely human life. XXVI When you shall close these eyes of mine to light, Oh kiss them long--for all that love afire May hope to give they shall have given you In that last look of ultimate desire. Beneath the moveless glow of candle light, Oh lean to them your face so fain and brave That on them be impressed this sight alone That they shall keep forever in the grave. And may I feel, before the tomb is mine, Upon the pure, white bed our hands that seek Each other once again, and near my head Feel for the last time repose your cheek; And know that I shall go away with heart Burning still for you so passionately That even through the mute and stony earth The dead themselves shall feel its ardency! End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Evening Hours, by Émile Verhaeren