THE SUNLIT HOURS BY ÉMILE VERHAEREN TRANSLATED BY CHARLES R. MURPHY NEW YORK JOHN LANE COMPANY M CM XVI CONTENTS I. "O, the Splendour of this Joy of Ours" II. "What Tho' We See It Break Before Us Into Flowers" III. "This Carven Column Whereon Monsters Cling" IV. "The Night, Unfolding, Banishes the Day" V. "Remembering Thy Gracious Gift to Me" VI. "At Times Thou Art the Spacious Light and Air" VII. "Oh, Let It Knock Upon Our Door" VIII. "I Have Given All My Heart to Thee" IX. "The Youthful Spring with Wondrous Might" X. "Come Out Into the Garden Fair" XI. "How Swiftly is She Caught in Ecstasy" XII. "At That Time When in Loneliness I stood" XIII. "Of What Avail the Hectic Reasoning" XIV. "Quietly, Like Stately Queens of Old" XV. "To All Thy Smiles and Tears" XVI. "I Bathe in Thy Two Eyes My Soul Entire" XVII. "That Love Within Our Eyes May Be" XVIII. "Mid-Summer Blooms Within Our Quiet Garden-Ways" XIX. "May Thy Dear Eyes, Thy Clear Eyes, Be" XX. "Tell Me, Oh My Tranquil Friend" XXI. "In Those Hours When We Seem Shut Out" XXII. "Oh, This Happiness" XXIII. "Oh, Let Us Live Out Love with All Our Powers" XXIV. "No Sooner Lip to Lip, Than We Are Fraught" XXV. "That Nothing May Elude Our Close Embrace" XXVI. "Although, the Autumn Eves" XXVII. "The Gift of Body, When the Soul is Given" XXVIII. "Was There Ever in Us One Caress" XXIX. "This Fair Garden Flowering to Flame" XXX. "If It Ever Be" THE SUNLIT HOURS I O the splendour of this joy of ours, Woven of gold of the sun-lit hours! Here stands the house in soft repose, The garden and the orchard-close. Here is the bench beneath the apple trees Where lazily the blanched spring Its petals now doth fling. And here the luminous birds one sees Soaring, like presages of light, In the clear heaven of their flight. And here, as of caresses rained in showers From the lips of the higher blue, Two lovely tarns of softest hue, Bordered naively with involuntary flowers. O the splendour of our joy, for we Live doubly, in ourselves, and day's high ecstasy. II What tho' we see it break before us into flowers, This garden where we pass the clear and silent hours? In our two hearts are spirit-flow'rs unfurled, Where blooms the fairest garden in the world. For as flow'rs we live and breathe When in laughter love breaks forth, And our sorrows sigh like trees In the dark winds from the North;