C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Get You Gone
By Emile Verhaeren (1855–1916)
G
The entire inn is for those who come.
For very nearly three hundred years.
It belongs to us, it belongs to us,
From the outer door with its heavy bolts
Up to the very chimney tops.
The entire inn is for those who come.
Every decay and every crack.
But it is we alone who pretend
To put new plaster instead of the old
From the ground-sills up to the edge of the roof.
The entire inn is for those who come.
Lying in their coffins of oak;
We envy those already dead
Unconscious of the cries of hate
Which leap and bound from plain to plain.
The entire inn is for those who come.
To put an Eagle on our sign;
It is our right, it is our right,
To own, according to the law,
More than we need of barley and rye.
Gestures and words mean nothing now.
Get you gone, get you gone,
And understand,
It is our hunger makes our right!