Chapter 17
Poem 17 of Afternoon by Emil Verhaarden Translated by Charles R. Murphy Read for LibriVox.org by Carolyn 17. With all my heart and brain, my feeling and my seeing, and with the flaming torch of all my being that reaches toward your goodness and your love, forever unassuaged, I love and bring you thanks and endless praise, for having come in all simplicity along devoted ways, to take with
gracious hands my destiny. And since you leaned above, I know, oh, what a love, candid and clear as is the dew, fallen upon my tranquil soul from you. I am yours as by their nerves of flame, fire and fuel merge, all my flesh and all my soul strive to you with undesisting urge. Nor do I cease from long remembering the fervency and beauty of our years, till suddenly I feel my eyes are filled deliciously with unoblivious tears. I come to you happy and resolved,
with proud desire to be unto your soul, he who shall be the surest of its joys, tenderness folds us in an aureole, echoes within me at your call assemble the hours holy and with rapture fraught. And just to touch your brow my fingers tremble, as though they brushed the pinions of your thought. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.
