INTENTIONS

Have pity on the eyes morose
Wherein the soul its hope reveals;
On fated things that ne'er unclose,
And all who wait what night conceals.


Ripples that rock the spirit's lake!
Lilies that sway beneath the tide
To threads the eternal rhythms shake!
O powers that close to vision hide!


Behold, O Lord, unwonted flowers
Among the water-lilies white!
Dim hands of Thine angelic powers
Trouble the waters of my sight:


At mystic signs the buds unroll,
Shed on the waters from the skies,
And as the swans take flight my soul
Spreads the white pinions of its eyes.

*Maurice Maeterlinck
*Maurice Maeterlinck was a Belgian playwright, poet and essayist who became involved with Symbolism, a French literary movement which uses symbols to represent ideas and emotions.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1911.

Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard, Count Maeterlinck, was born in Ghent, Belgium on August 29, 1862. He studied law at the University of Ghent where he was profoundly influenced by Symbolism. His early works were not in plays but poetry. He published his first poem, The Rushes, when he was a 21-year-old university student.

His experimental work, although different in style prepared the way for playwrights Eugène Ionesco and Harold Pinter.
He died at the age of 86, on May 6, 1949.

“When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.” - Maurice Maeterlinck -