A poem from the 1880s movement in Dutch literature by Willem Kloos

The trees are wilting at the season’s end,

Awaiting motionless the approaching winter

How still it all is, deathly still... The stint of

My own brief life’s contained there, almost spent.

Ah, much, so much I dearly would have done,

Some Verses and some Love, – for who is eager

Without them to face death? But who by meagre

Rage or complaint has something ever won?

Contented, still and meek I now will be,

And nothing from that Life I take with me

Than this thought that is pounding in my brain:

One need not shudder at one’s own fond Death:

The dead flowers will not ever come again,

But I will in my Verse once more draw breath.