Friday 4 July 2014

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.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's the name of this poem and when was it written?

John Irons said...

Willem Kloos, ‘De bomen dorren’, H. van Straten (ed.), Toen bliezen
de poortwachters. Proza en poëzie van 1880-1920, Amsterdam, 1959,
p.15.

John Irons said...
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