Willem Bilderdijk

Willem Bilderdijk Poems

Willem Bilderdijk Biography

Willem Bilderdijk (Amsterdam, September 7, 1756 - Haarlem, December 31, 1831), Dutch poet, the son of an Amsterdam physician. When he was six years old an accident to his foot incapacitated him for ten years, and he developed habits of continuous and concentrated study. His parents were ardent partisans of the House of Orange-Nassau, and Bilderdijk grew up with strong monarchical and Calvinistic convictions. After studying at Leiden University, Bilderdijk obtained his doctorate in law in 1782, and began to practise as an advocate at The Hague. Three years later he contracted an unhappy marriage with Rebecca Woesthoven. He refused in 1795 to take the oath to the administration of the new Batavian Republic, and was consequently obliged to leave the Netherlands. He went to Hamburg, and then to London, where his great learning procured him consideration. There he had as a pupil Katharina Wilhelmina Schweickhardt (1776-1830), the daughter of a Dutch painter and herself a poet. When he left London in June 1797 for Braunschweig, this lady followed him, and after he had formally divorced his first wife (1802) they were married. In 1806 he was persuaded by his friends to return to the Netherlands, where the Batavian Republic had been replaced by a monarchy, the first king being Louis Bonaparte, a brother of the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Louis Napoleon kindly received Bilderdijk and made him his librarian, and a member and eventually president (1809-1811) of the Royal Institute. Bilderdijk also taught the king Dutch, although -on one occasion- he told his people that he was the "Konijn van 'Olland" ("rabbit of 'Olland"), rather than "Koning van Holland" ("King of Holland"), because he had difficulty mastering the pronunciation. After the abdication of Louis Napoleon Bilderdijk suffered great poverty; on the accession of William I of the Netherlands in 1813 he hoped to be made a professor, but was disappointed and became a history tutor at Leiden. He continued his vigorous campaign against liberal ideas to his death, which took place at Haarlem on the 18th of December 1831. Bilderdijk was the founder of the spiritual movement that is called "Het Réveil", which tried to give a Christian answer to the ideals of the French Revolution. Among his disciples were Abraham Capadose, Willem de Clercq, Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, and especially Isaac da Costa, who called his teacher "anti-revolutionary, anti-Barneveldtian, anti-Loevesteinish, anti-liberal". There is a Bilderdijk Museum in Amsterdam.)

The Best Poem Of Willem Bilderdijk

From The Ode To Napoleon

Poesy, nay! Too long art silent!
Seize now the lute! Why dost thou tarry?
Let sword the Universe inherit,
Noblest as prize of war be glory.
Let thousand mouths sing hero-actions:
E'en so, the glory is not uttered.
Earth-gods--an endless life, ambrosial,
Find they alone in song enchanting.

Watch thou with care thy heedless fingers
Striking upon the lyre so godlike;
Hold thou in check thy lightning-flashes,
That where they chance to fall are blighting.
He who on eagle's wing soars skyward
Must at the sun's bright barrier tremble.
Frederic, though great in royal throning,
Well may amaze the earth, and heaven,
When clothed by thunder and the levin
Swerves he before the hero's fanfare.

* * * * *

Pause then, Imagination! Portals
Hiding the Future, ope your doorways!
Earth, the blood-drenched, yields palms and olives.
Sword that hath cleft on bone and muscle,
Spear that hath drunk the hero's lifeblood,
Furrow the soil, as spade and ploughshare.
Blasts that alarm from blaring trumpets
Laws of fair Peace anon shall herald:
Heaven's shame, at last, its end attaining.

Earth, see, O see your sceptres bowing.
Gone is the eagle once majestic;
On us a cycle new is dawning;
Look, from the skies it hath descended.
O potent princes, ye the throne-born!
See what Almighty will hath destined.
Quit ye your seats, in low adoring,
Set all the earth, with you, a-kneeling;
Or--as the free-born men should perish--
Sink in grave with crown and kingdom.

Glorious in lucent rays, already
Brighter than gold a sceptre shineth;
No warring realm shall dim its lustre,
No earth-storm veil its blaze to dimness.
Can it be true that, centuries ended,
God's endless realm, the Hebrew, quickens
Lifting its horns--though not for always?
Shines in the East the sun, like noonday?
Shall Hagar's wandering sons be heartened
After the Moslem's haughty baiting?

Speed toward us, speed, O days so joyous!
Even if blood your cost be reckoned;
Speed as in Heaven's gracious favor,
Bringing again Heaven's earthly kingdom.
Yea, though through waters deep we struggle,
Joining in fight with seas of troubles.
Suffer we, bear we--hope--be silent!
On us shall dawn a coming daybreak--
With it, the world of men be happy!

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