THE HOUSE OF ERASMUS

At Anderlecht, in this uncertain Autumn

behind the redbrick walls

lie the cluttered books and letters of the Rotterdamer

heard by all Europe

in that rhetorical time

but out here this cold afternoon

in the frost-bitten garden

there's a rose, only a rose of the last days

white, with a silent, distant perfume.

Kenneth White


Mercure de France  Edition Bilingue