The poems of Heine; Complete / Translated into the original metres; with a sketch of his life

Fair woman’s body is a song
Inscribed by our great Maker
In Nature’s mighty album erst,
When moved to life to wake her.

Ah yes! propitious was the hour
When thus he show’d compassion!
The coy rebellious stuff he work’d
In true artistic fashion.

Yes, woman’s body is, ’mongst songs,
The song most sweet and tender,
And wondrous strophes are her limbs,
So snowy-white and slender.

And then her neck, her glistening neck,—
O what a godlike notion!—
Where the main thought, her little head,
Rocks with a graceful motion.

Like polish’d epigrams one loves
Her bosom’s rosebuds dearly;
Enchanting the cæsura is
That parts her breasts severely.

The song has flesh, ribs, hands, and feet,
No abstract poem this is!
With lips that rhyme deliciously
It smiles and sweetly kisses.

True poetry is breathing here,
Grace shines in each direction;
The song upon its forehead bears
The stamp of all perfection.

I’ll praise thee, Lord, and in the dust
Will humbly kneel to show it;
Bunglers are we, compared with thee,
Thou glorious heavenly Poet.

Before the splendour of thy song
I’ll bow in adoration,
And to its study day and night
Pay closest application.

Yes, day and night I’ll study it,
No loss of time admitting;
So shall I soon with overwork
Be thinner than befitting.

THE SUTTLER’S SONG.

(From the Thirty Years’ War.)

The brave hussars I dearly love,
I love each gallant fellow;
Without distinction I love them all,
The blue as well as the yellow.

The musketeers I dearly love,
I love the musketeers, too;
The officers, privates, and recruits,
And those of older years too.

The infantry and cavalry—
I love the brave fellows sincerely;
And then the artillery,—one and all,
I love them truly and dearly.

I love the Germans, I love the French,
I love the Italians and Dutchmen;
I love the Bohemians, Spaniards, and Swedes,
I love both many and much men.

Whatever may be his native land,
Whatever his faith or persuasion,
Provided a man is sound in health,
I love him on ev’ry occasion.

Religion and country are nothing more
Than his outside clothing,—God bless him.
Away with his cov’ring, that I to my heart
May fondly and warmly press him!

A mortal am I, and only too glad
With any mortal to dally;
And as for the man who can’t pay on the spot,
For him I keep a tally.

The garland green in front of my tent
In the light of the sun smiles gaily,
And I am now drinking malmsey wine
From a fresh-open’d barrel daily.

HORSE AND ASS.

A train was rushing along one day,
With carriages, engine, and tender;
The chimney vomited forth its smoke,
Like a dashing old offender.

The train pass’d a farmyard, and over the hedge
A grey horse, at the sound of the whistle,
Stretch’d out his head; an ass stood by,
Demurely chewing a thistle.

With wondering gaze the horse long stared
At the train; then strangely quivering
In every limb, he sigh’d, and said:
“The sight has set me a-shivering!

“I’m sure that if I by nature had been
“A chesnut, or black, or bay horse,
“My skin with the fright its colour would change,
“And make me (as now) a grey horse.

“The equestrian race is doom’d, beyond doubt,
“To be swept away in fate’s eddy;
“Although I’m a grey horse, I cannot but see
“A black future before me already.

“The competition of these machines
“Will certainly kill us poor horses;
“For riding and driving will man prefer
“Iron steeds, if so great their force is.

“And if man can get on without our help,
“Alike for riding and driving,
“Good-bye to our oats, good-bye to our hay
“What chance have we of surviving?

“The heart of man is hard as a stone,
“He gives away nothing gratis;
“They’ll drive us out of our stables, and we
“Shall starve—what a cruel fate ’tis!

“We cannot borrow and cannot steal
“Like mortals whose natures are blacker;
“We cannot fawn like men and dogs,
“But shall fall a prey to the knacker.”

Thus grumbled the horse, and deeply sigh’d,—
Meanwhile the ass hard by him
Had quietly chew’d two thistle-tops,
As if nothing could terrify him.

He presently answer’d in dainty tones,
With his tongue first licking his muzzle:
“With what the future may have in store,
“My brains I shall not puzzle.

“You horses proud are threaten’d, no doubt,
“By a future that’s far from pleasant;
“But we modest asses are not afraid
“Of dangers future or present.

“That grey horses, and chesnut, and piebald, and black,
“May be done without, true, alas! is;
“But Mister Steam, with his chimney long,
“Can never replace us asses.

“However clever may be the machines
“Made by man with his senses besotted,
“The ass as his portion will always have
“Sure means of existence allotted.

“Its asses will Heaven, I’m sure, ne’er desert,
“Who, moved by a calm sense of duty,
“Turn the mill every day, as their fathers have done,—
“A sight not deficient in beauty.

“The mill-wheel clatters, the miller works hard,
“The meal in the sack well shaking,
“And people eat their bread and their rolls,
“As soon as they’ve finished the baking.

“In Nature’s old-fashion’d and jogtrot way
“The world will keep spinning for ever;
“And as changeless even as Nature herself,
“The ass will alter never.”
* * *
MORAL.

Gone are the days of chivalry,
And the proud steed must hungry be;
But L——, the ass, I boldly say,
Will never want his oats and hay.

THE ASS-ELECTION.

Being tired of freedom for some time past
The beasts’ republic decided
To be with a single ruler at last
As its absolute head provided.

Each kind of beast prepared for the strife,
Electoral billets were written;
Intrigues on every side were rife,
With party zeal all were bitten.

By long-ear’d gentry at its head
The asses’ committee was aided;
Cockades, whose colours were black, gold, and red,[94]
They boastfully paraded.

A small party there was of friends of the horse,
Who yet were afraid of voting,
So greatly they dreaded the outcry coarse
The long-ear’d party denoting.

But when one of them ventured the horse to name
As a candidate, greater and greater
Wax’d the noise, and an old long-ear, to his shame,
Shouted out “Thou art only a traitor.

“A traitor art thou, in thy veins doth not flow
“One drop of asses’ blood proper;
“No ass art thou, and I almost know
“That a foreign mare was thy dropper!

“From the zebra perchance thou art sprung; thy striped hide
“Quite answers the zebra’s description;
“The nasal twang of thy voice is allied
“To the Hebrew as well as Egyptian.

“And if not a stranger, thou art, thou must own,
“A dull ass, of an intellect paltry;
“The depths of ass-nature to thee are unknown
“Thou hear’st not its mystical psalt’ry.

“But with sweet stupefaction my soul drinks in
“That sound which all others surpasses;
“An ass am I, and each hair in the skin
“Of my tail the hair of an ass is.

“I am not a Papist, I am not a slave,
“A German ass am I solely;
“The same as my fathers, who all were so brave,
“So thoughtful, demure, and so holy.

“They were not addicted to doing ill,
“Or practising gallantry gaily;
“But trotted off with the sack to the mill
“In frolicsome fashion daily.

“Our fathers still live. In the tomb only lie
“Their skins, their mortal covering;
“Their happy spirits, high up in the sky,
“Complacently o’er us are hovering.

“Ye glorified asses, ye need not doubt
“That we fain would resemble you ever,
“And from the path that duty points out
“We’ll swerve a finger’s breadth never.

“O what a delight an ass to be,
“From such long-ear’d worthies descended!
“From every house-top I’d fain shout with glee:
“‘An ass I was born—how splendid!’

“The noble jackass who gave me birth
“Was of genuine German extraction;
“From my mother, a German ass of worth,
“My milk suck’d I with great satisfaction.

“An ass am I, and fully intend,
“Like my fathers who now are departed,
“To stand by the asses, yes, stand to the end
“By the asses so dear and true-hearted.

“And since I’m an ass, I advise you all round
“To choose your king from the asses;
“A mighty ass-kingdom we thus will found,
“They being the governing classes.

“We all are asses. Hee-ha! Hee-ha!
“As ostlers we will not demean us;
“Away with the horses! Long live, hurrah,
“The king of the asinine genus!”

Thus spake the patriot. Through the hall
The asses cheer’d him proudly;
They all, in fact, were national,
And with their hoofs stamp’d loudly.

An oaken wreath on the orator’s head
They put as a decoration;
He wagg’d his tail (though nothing he said)
With evident gratification.

BERTHA.

She seem’d so gentle, she seem’d so good,
An angel I thought my lover;
She wrote the dearest letters to me,
With kindness teeming all over.

The wedding was very soon to take place,
Her relations heard this by dozens;
My Bertha was a silly thing,
For she listen’d to aunts and cousins.

She kept not her word, she broke her oath,
And yet I have been forgiving;
Had I married her first, I ne’er should have known
Either pleasure or love while living.

When I of a faithless woman think,
I think of Bertha the faithless;
The only wish I have left, is that she
May pass through her confinement scatheless.

IN THE CATHEDRAL.

Before me the sexton’s daughter fair
Through the sacred edifice skippèd;
Her size was small, and light her hair,
From her neck her kerchief had slippèd.

In the old cathedral for sixpence I got
A sight of its marvellous creatures,
Its tombs, lights, crosses; I turn’d quite hot
When I gazed on Elspeth’s features.

And once again I stared about
At the sacred relics entrancing;
In their under-petticoats all trick’d out,
On the window the women were dancing.

The sexton’s little daughter fair
Stood by me, while thus I inspected.
She had a very pretty pair
Of eyes, wherein all was reflected.

Before me the sexton’s daughter fair
From the sacred edifice skippèd;
Her mouth was small, her neck was bare,
From her bosom her kerchief had slippèd.

THE DRAGONFLY.

The dragonfly blue’s all the fashion
In beetle-land, in the present day;
The butterflies their addresses pay
To the beauty with amorous passion.

Her hips are excessively slender,
She wears a gauze dress of delicate hue,
With very symmetrical movements too
She flutters about in splendour.

Her colour’d admirers hover
In her train, and many a young gallant
Thus swears: “I’ll Holland give, and Brabant
“If thou wilt be my lover.”

She answers (but how insincerely!):
“Brabant and Holland are nothing to me,
“I want but a spark of light, to see
“In my little chamber clearly.”

When she imposes this duty,
Her lovers hasten to join in the race,
And eagerly seek, from place to place,
A spark of light for the beauty.

As soon as one sees a taper,
He blindly rushes on to his doom,
And the cruel flames the victim consume,
And his loving heart, like paper.
* * * *
It comes from Japan, this fable,
Yet even in Germany, my dear child,
Are plenty of dragonflies, devilish wild,
Perfidious, and unstable.

OLD SCENTS.

The nosegay Matilda twined for me,
And smilingly offer’d entreatingly,
I push’d away, o’erpower’d completely
By the sight of the flowers that blossom’d so sweetly.

At the scent of the flowers, my tears fast flow,—
I feel that in all this fair world below,
Its beauty, sunlight, joy, love are bereft me,
And nought but its bitter tears are left me.

They tell me that I no longer share
A part in life and its circle fair,
That I belong to death’s kingdom dreary,
Yes, I, a corpse unburied and weary.

How happy was I when erst I saw
The dance of rats at the Opera!
But now I hear the odious scuffling
Of churchyard rats and grave-moles shuffling.

The scent of the flowers recalls again
A perfect ballet, a joyous train
Of recollections perfumed and glowing,
From the hidden depths of the past o’erflowing,

To sound of cornet and castanet,
In spangled dresses (full short, I regret),—
Yet all their toying, each laugh, each titter,
Can only render my thoughts more bitter.

Away with the flowers! O, how I abhor
The scent that maliciously tells once more
Of days long vanish’d and hours of gladness—
I weep at the thought with speechless sadness.

MISERERE.

The sons of Fortune I envy not
For their lives, in pleasure vying,
I envy them only their happy death,
Their easy and painless dying.

In gala dresses, with garlanded heads,
Their lips in laughter extended,
They joyously sit at the banquet of life,—
The sickle falls,—all is ended!

In festal attire, with roses adorn’d,
Still blooming with life, these glad mortals,
These fav’rites of fortune reach at last
The shadowy realm’s dark portals.

They ne’er were disfigured by fever’s attack,
They die with a joyous demeanour,
And gladly are welcomed at her sad court
By Proserpine, hell’s Czarina.

O how I envy a fate like theirs!
Seven years I daily languish
For death, as on the ground I writhe
In bitter and speechless anguish.

O God! my agony shorten, that I
May be buried,—my sole ambition.
Thou knowest that I no talent possess
For filling a martyr’s position.

I feel astonished, gracious Lord,
At a course so unconsequential;
Thou madest a joyous poet, without
That joy that is so essential.

My torments blunt each feeling of mirth,
And melancholy make me;
Unless I get better ere long, to the faith
Of a Catholic I must betake me.

Like other good Christians, I then shall howl
In thine ears my wailings dreary—
The best of humorists then will be lost
For ever—O Miserere.

TO MATILDA.

I was, dear lamb, ordain’d to be
A shepherd here, to watch o’er thee;
I nourish’d thee with mine own bread,
With water from the fountain head.

And when the winter storm roar’d loudly,
Against my breast I warm’d thee proudly;
There held I thee encircled well
Whilst rain in torrents round us fell;
When, through its rocky dark bed pouring
The torrent, with the wolf, was roaring,
Thou feared’st not, no muscle quiver’d,
E’en when the highest pine was shiver’d
By the fork’d flash—within mine arm
Thou slept’st in peace without alarm.

My arm grows weak, and fast draws near
Pale death! My shepherd’s task so dear,
And pastoral care approach their end.
Into Thy hands, God, I commend
My staff once more. O do Thou guard
My lamb, when I beneath the sward
Am laid in peace, and suffer ne’er
A thorn to prick her anywhere.

From thorny hedges guard her fleece,
May quagmires ne’er disturb her peace,
May there spring up beneath her feet
An ample crop of pasture sweet,
And let her sleep without alarm,
As erst she slept within mine arm!

FOR THE “MOUCHE.”[95]

I had a dream. It was a summer’s night,
And in the moonlight, pale and weatherbeaten,
Lay buildings, relics of past ages bright,—
The style, renaissant, of these wrecks time-eaten.

And here and there, with stately Doric head,
Rose single columns from the mass there lying,
And on the firmament high o’er them spread
Gazed they, as if its thunderbolts defying.

In broken fragments lay there on the ground,
Mingled with many a portal, many a gable,
Sculptures where man, beast, centaur, sphinx were found,
Chimera, satyr,—creatures of old fable.

The contrasts there presented were grotesque,
The emblems of Judæa’s God combining
With Grecian grace, in fashion arabesque
The ivy round them both, its tendrils twining.

A fair sarcophagus of marble white
Amid the ruins stood, unmutilated;
And in the coffin lay a corpse in sight,
Of features mild, with sadness penetrated.

The power supporting it appear’d supplied
By Caryatides, with necks extended;
And many a bas-relief on either side
Was seen, of chisell’d figures strangely blended.

The glories of Olympus there saw I,
With all its heathen deities misguided;
Adam and Eve were there, decorously
With figleaf aprons round their loins provided.

Troy’s taking and Troy’s burning here were seen,
Hector and Helen, Paris (that wild gay man);
Moses and Aaron also stood between,
With Esther, Judith, Holofernes, Haman.

God Amor also had his place hard by,
Phœbus, Apollo, Vulcan, Madam Venus,
Pluto, Proserpina, and Mercury,
God Bacchus, and Priapus, and Silenus.

Likewise was Balaam’s ass omitted not,—
(The ass for speaking seem’d, in fact, created),
And Abraham’s temptation too, and Lot,
Who by his daughters was intoxicated.

Herodias’ daughter’s dance was shown as well,
The Baptist’s head was in the charger given;
The monster Satan too was there, and hell,
And Peter, with the heavy keys of heaven.

And next in order saw I sculptured there
The loves of Jove, with his vile actions blending;
How as a swan he ravish’d Leda fair,
And Danaë, in golden shower descending.

The wild hunt of Diana was display’d,
With her fleet dogs, and nymphs attired so trimly;
And Hercules, in woman’s clothes array’d,
Distaff on arm, the spindle whirling nimbly.

And next was Sinai’s mountain to be view’d,
And Israel near it, with his oxen lowing;
The Lord a child within the temple stood,
Disputing with the doctors proud and knowing.

But, strange to tell, when I had dreamily
These forms a while observed, in thought suspended,
I suddenly conceived myself to be
The corpse, in that fair marble tomb extended.

And at the head of this my grave there stood
A flower full fair, of strange configuration;
Its leaves were yellow-tinged and violet-hued,
The flower possess’d a wondrous fascination.

’Tis by the name of passion-flower well known,
On Golgotha, they say, ’twas first created
The day they crucified God’s only Son,
And the Redeemer’s body lacerated.

Bloodwitness doth this flower now bear, they say;
Each instrument of torture then invented
And used at His sad martyrdom that day,
Is in its calyx duly represented.

Yes! every passion-attribute adorns
The flower, each emblem of their cruel malice,—
For instance, scourge and rope and crown of thorns,
The hammer and the nails, the cross, the chalice.

Such was the flower which at my grave did stand,
And o’er my body bending with compassion,
As with a woman’s sorrow, kiss’d my hand,
My eyes, and forehead, in sad silent fashion.

But O, my dream’s strange magic! Wondrously
The passion-flower, the yellow-hued and rare one,
Changed to a woman’s likeness,—ah! and she,
She was my loved one, she was mine own fair one!

Thou wert the flower, yes, thou, my darling child!
At once I knew thee by thy kisses yearning;
No lips of flowers so tender are and mild,
No tears of flowers so fiery are and burning.

Although mine eyes were closed, my spirit gazed
With steadiness upon thy face entrancing;
Thou look’dst at me with raptured look amazed,
Strangely illumined in the moonlight glancing.

No words we spake, and yet my heart could see
The thoughts that in thy mind in silence hover’d;
A word when spoken has no modesty,
By silence is love’s modest blossoms cover’d.

Voiceless our converse! Wondrous doth it seem
How in our silent, tender conversation
The time pass’d in that summer night’s fair dream,
When joy commingled was with consternation.

That which we spoke of then, ne’er seek to learn,
The glow-worm ask, why in the grass it gloweth,
The torrent, why it roareth in the burn,
The west wind, why it waileth as it bloweth.

Ask the carbuncle why it gleams so bright,
The rose and violet, why so sweetly scented;
But ask not what, beneath the moon’s soft light,
The martyr-flower talk’d with her love lamented!

I cannot tell how long it was that I
Enjoy’d, as in the marble tomb I slumber’d,
That beauteous, happy dream. It fleeted by,
Too soon the moments of my rest were number’d.

Death with thy gravelike silence! Thou alone
Canst give us pleasure in a lasting fashion;
Vain barbarous life, for joy is ever known
To give us restless bliss, convulsive passion.

Alas, alas! my happiness soon fled,
For suddenly arose a noise exciting,
It was a savage conflict, fierce and dread—
Ah, my poor flower was scared by all this fighting!

Yes! there arose outside, with hideous yell,
A quarrelling, a yelping, and a scolding;
Methought that many a voice I knew full well,—
It was the bas-reliefs my tomb enfolding!

Is the stone haunted by those visions wan?
And are those marble phantoms all disputing?
The fearful clamour of the wood-god Pan,
Moses’s fierce anathemas confuting.

Alas! this contest ne’er will ended be,
The True and Beautiful will wrangle ever!
Greeks and Barbarians in wild rivalry
The ranks of man are always doom’d to sever.

They cursed and raved. No end would there have been
To this long squabble, and their passion towering,
Had Balaam’s ass not come upon the scene,
The voices of the gods and saints o’erpowering.

The stupid beast, with his disgusting brag,
That sobbing sound of sheer abomination,
Made me cry out in terrible dismay,
And I awoke at last in desperation.

THE END.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED;

DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W.

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