Emile Verhaeren (1855-1916) who, along with his contemporaries Maurice Maeterlinck, Georges Rodenbach, Albert Mockel, Charles van Lerberghe and Max Elskamp, helped to define the Symbolist movement, is one of Belgium's most venerated and admired francophone poets. Dubbed the 'European Walt Whitman', he was a pro-European idealist whose poetry explores his all-consuming notion of mankind advancing to a promised land where vital creative energies and new technology could combine to produce a more progressive humanity, a hope ignominiously swept away by the industrial brutality of the First World War.

This sympathetic modern translation by Will Stone at last allows the English-speaking world to return to, and reappraise, a major poet whose influence was felt throughout European literary circles during his life-time. Not only does this selection contain some of Verhaeren's most passionate and visionary outpourings but also some of the most tender and beautiful love poems ever written.

"My heart is a burning bush that sets
my lips on fire..."

- Emile Verhaeren

Emile Verhaeren (1855-1916) is the most important Belgian poet in the French language. He was born and educated in Flanders and then settled into the literary community of Brussels where he soon became a pivotal link with the symbolist movement in Paris, finally moving there in 1898. Verhaeren's oeuvre is immense and was often illustrated by leading artists of the day. A national treasure, and symbol of defiance against German aggression, he died in an accident in Rouen station in 1916.