"The comfort of coming to a man of genius, who finds in verse his freest and most perfect expression, whose voyage over the deep of poetry destiny makes smooth! The magic of Heine's poetical form is incomparable; he employs this form with the most exquisite lightness and ease, and yet it has at the same time the inborn fulness, pathos, and old-world charm of all true forms of popular poetry. Thus in Heine's poetry, too, one perpetually blends the impression of French modernism and clearness with that of German sentiment and fulness."

MATTHEW ARNOLD

                                 The Asra

Every day so lovely, shining,

up and down, the Sultan’s daughter

walked at evening by the water,

where the white fountain splashes.

Every day the young slave stood

by the water, in the evening,

where the white fountain splashes,

each day growing pale and paler.

Then the princess came one evening,

quickly speaking to him, softly,

‘Your true name – I wish to know it,

your true homeland and your nation.’

And the slave said, ‘I am called

Mahomet, I am from Yemen,

and my tribe, it is the Asra,

who die, when they love.’

                Death

Our death is in the cool of night,

our life is in the pool of day.

The darkness glows, I’m drowning,

the day has tired me with light.

Over my head in leaves grown deep,

sings the young nightingale.

It only sings of love there,

I hear it in my sleep.

         A Palm-tree

A single fir-tree, lonely,

on a northern mountain height,

sleeps in a white blanket,

draped in snow and ice.

His dreams are of a palm-tree,

who, far in eastern lands,

weeps, all alone and silent,

among the burning sands

Death and his Brother Sleep (‘Morphine’)

There’s a mirror likeness between those two

shining, youthfully-fledged figures, though

one seems paler than the other and more austere,

I might even say more perfect, more distinguished,

than he, who would take me confidingly in his arms –

how soft then and loving his smile, how blessed his glance!

Then, it might well have been that his wreath

of white poppies gently touched my forehead, at times,

and drove the pain from my mind with its strange scent

But that is transient. I can only, now, be well,

when the other one, so serious and pale,

the older brother, lowers his dark torch. –

Sleep is so good, Death is better, yet

surely never to have been born is best.

(Thanatos, Death, was the son of Night, usually shown as a winged spirit. He then completely resembled his brother Hypnos, Sleep, who lived with him in the Underworld. Hypnos put men to sleep by touching them with his magic wand or by fanning them with his dark wings. His son, Morpheus, was god of dreams)

 ©Copyright 2000 A.S.Kline, All Rights Reserved

THE OLD DREAM COMES AGAIN TO ME

by: Heinrich Heine (1799-1856)

HE old dream comes again to me:

With May-night stars above,

We two sat under the linden-tree

And swore eternal love.

 

Again and again we plighted troth,

We chattered, and laughed, and kissed;

To make me well remember my oath

You gave me a bite on the wrist.

 

O darling with the eyes serene,

And with the teeth so white!

The vows were proper to the scene,

Superfluous was the bite.

 

 

AD FINEM

by: Heinrich Heine (1799-1856)

HE years they come and go,

The races drop in the grave,

Yet never the love doth so

Which here in my heart I have.

 

Could I see thee but once, one day,

And sink down so on my knee,

And die in thy sight while I say,

"Lady, I love but thee!"

Excerpt from Heine's Essay:

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