rnal called "_La
Semaine_," in which work he was assisted by the singer Van Dyck, and by
his friend and present publisher, Edmond Deman. He also formed, about
this time, a close friendship with Maeterlinck. In 1881, Verhaeren was
called to the Bar at Brussels, but soon gave up his legal career to
devote himself entirely to literature. In 1883 he published his first
volume of poems, and shortly afterwards became one of the editors of
"_L'Art Moderne_," to which, as well as to other contemporary periodicals,
he was for many years a contributor. In 1892 he founded, with the help
of two other friends, the "Section of Art" in the "House of the People,"
a popular institution in Brussels, where performances of the best music,
as well as lectures upon literary and artistic subjects, were given. In
spite, however, of the work which all this entailed, and of the many
interests created by his ardent appreciation of the various branches of
art and literature, Verhaeren continued to labour unceasingly at his
poetical work, and between 1883 and 1897 brought out successively eleven
small volumes: _Les Flamandes, Les Moines, Les Soirs, Les Debacles, Les
Flambeaux Noirs, Les Apparus dans mes chemins, Les Campagnes
Hallucinees, Les Villages Illusoires, Les Villes Tentaculaires, Les
Heures Claires,_ and _Les Aubes_.

Throughout this entire series the intellectual and spiritual development
of the poet may be closely traced--from the materialism which pervades
_Les Flamandes_, and the despairing pessimism and lurid emotion--the
throes of a self-centred soul in revolt against fate--which are so
powerfully portrayed in _Les Debacles_ and _Les Flambeaux Noirs_, and are
apparent even in the opening pages of _Les Apparus_ dans mes chemins--to
the tender, hopeful mysticism which marks the latter poems in that
volume, and the wonderful sympathy with Nature, even in her saddest
aspects--the subtle power of endowing those aspects with a profound and
ennobling symbolism, which characterise the most beautiful of the poems
in Les Villages Illusoires. Les Heures Claires is the name given to a
volume of love-songs, an exquisite record of golden hours spent in a
garden at spring-time--spring-time in a double sense.

The task of making an adequate and typical selection from a poet's work
is always difficult, and in this case it has been decided to limit the
field of selection, at least for the present, to the three last-named
volumes, which embody what ma