Poems of Emile Verhaeren

The fire
Funnel-like hollows its way yet higher,
'Twixt walls of stone, up the steeple's height;
Gaining the archway and lofty stage
Where, swinging in light, the bell bounds with rage.
The daws and the owls, with wild, long cry

Pass screeching by;
On the fast-closed casements their heads they smite,
Burn in the smoke-drifts their pinions light,
Then, broken with terror and bruised with flight.
Suddenly, 'mid the surging crowd.
Fall dead outright.

The old man sees toward his brandished bells
The climbing fire
With hands of boiling gold stretch nigher.

The steeple
Looks like a thicket of crimson bushes,
With here a branch of flame that rushes
Darting the belfry boards betwe