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                        BOHN’S STANDARD LIBRARY

                          THE POEMS OF HEINE


                         GEORGE BELL AND SONS

                    LONDON: PORTUGAL ST., LINCOLN’S INN.
                    CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO.
                    NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
                    BOMBAY: A. H. WHEELER AND CO.




                          THE POEMS OF HEINE

                               COMPLETE

                  TRANSLATED INTO THE ORIGINAL METRES
                       WITH A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE

                                  BY

                      EDGAR ALFRED BOWRING, C.B.

                       [Illustration: colophon]

                                LONDON

                         GEORGE BELL AND SONS

                                 1908

                 [_Reprinted from Stereotype plates._]





CONTENTS.


                                                                    PAGE

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION                                       viii

PREFACE                                                               ix

MEMOIR OF HEINRICH HEINE                                              xi


EARLY POEMS.

SONGS OF LOVE
      Love’s Salutation                                                1
      Love’s Lament                                                    1
      Yearning                                                         2
      The White Flower                                                 3
      Presentiment                                                     4

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS
    GERMANY, 1815                                                      6
    DREAM, 1816                                                        9
    THE CONSECRATION                                                  11
    THE MOOR’S SERENADE                                               12
    DREAM AND LIFE                                                    13
    THE LESSON                                                        14
    TO FRANCIS V. Z----                                               14
    A PROLOGUE TO THE HARTZ-JOURNEY                                   15
    DEFEND NOT                                                        15
    A PARODY                                                          16
    WALKING FLOWERS AT BERLIN                                         16
    EVENING SONGS                                                     16
    SONNETS
        To Augustus William von Schlegel                              17
        To the Same                                                   17
        To Councillor George S----, of Göttingen                      19
        To J. B. Rousseau                                             19
        The Night Watch on the Drachenfels. To Fritz von B----        20
        In Fritz Steinmann’s Album                                    20
        To Her                                                        21
        Goethe’s Monument at Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1821              21
        Dresden Poetry                                                21
        Beardless Art                                                 22


BOOK OF SONGS

PREFACE                                                               23

YOUTHFUL SORROWS (1817-1821)
    VISIONS                                                           24
    SONGS                                                             39
    ROMANCES                                                          43
        The Mournful One                                              43
        The Mountain Echo                                             43
        The Two Brothers                                              44
        Poor Peter                                                    44
        The Prisoner’s Song                                           45
        The Grenadiers                                                46
        The Message                                                   46
        Taking the Bride Home                                         46
        Don Ramiro                                                    47
        Belshazzar                                                    52
        The Minnesingers                                              53
        Looking from the Window                                       54
        The Wounded Knight                                            54
        The Sea Voyage                                                54
        The Song of Repentance                                        55
        To a Singer (on her singing an old romance)                   56
        The Song of the Ducats                                        57
        Dialogue on Paderborn Heath                                   57
        Life’s Salutations (from an album)                            59
        Quite True                                                    59

    SONNETS
        To A. W. von Schlegel                                         59
        To my Mother, B. Heine, _née_ von Geldern                     60
        To H. S.                                                      61
    FRESCO SONNETS to Christian S----                                 61

LYRICAL INTERLUDE (1822-23)
    PROLOGUE                                                          65
    LYRICS                                                            66
    THE GOD’S TWILIGHT                                                89
    RATCLIFF                                                          91
    DONNA CLARA                                                       94
    ALAMANSOR                                                         96
    THE PILGRIMAGE TO KEVLAAR                                        100
    THE DREAM (from _Salon_)                                         102

NEW POEMS
    SERAPHINA                                                        102
    ANGELICA                                                         107
    DIANA                                                            112
    HORTENSE                                                         113
    CLARISSA                                                         115
    YOLANTE AND MARY                                                 119
    EMMA                                                             121
    FREDERICA                                                        122
    CATHERINE                                                        124
    SONGS OF CREATION                                                129
    ABROAD                                                           131
    TRAGEDY                                                          132
    THE TANNHÄUSER, A Legend                                         133

    ROMANCES
        A Woman                                                      139
        Celebration of Spring                                        139
        Childe Harold                                                140
        The Exorcism                                                 140
        Extract from a letter                                        141
        The Evil Star                                                142
        Anno 1829                                                    142
        Anno 1839                                                    143
        At Dawn                                                      144
        Sir Olave                                                    144
        The Water Nymphs                                             146
        Bertrand de Born                                             147
        Spring                                                       147
        Ali Bey                                                      148
        Psyche                                                       149
        The Unknown One                                              149
        The Change                                                   150
        Fortune                                                      150
        Lamentation of an old German Youth                           150
        Away!                                                        151
        Madam Mette (from the Danish)                                151
        The Meeting                                                  153
        King Harold Harfagar                                         154
        The Lower World                                              155

    MISCELLANIES
        Muledom                                                      158
        The Symbol of Madness                                        158
        Pride                                                        160
        Away!                                                        161
        Winter                                                       161
        The Old Chimney-piece                                        162
        Longing                                                      162
        Helena                                                       163
        The Wise Stars                                               163
        The Angels                                                   163

    POEMS FOR THE TIMES
        Sound Doctrine                                               164
        Adam the First                                               164
        Warning                                                      165
        To a Quondam Follower of Goethe (1832)                       165
        The Secret                                                   166
        On the Watchman’s Arrival in Paris                           166
        The Drum Major                                               167
        Degeneracy                                                   169
        Henry                                                        169
        Life’s Journey                                               170
        The New Jewish Hospital at Hamburg                           170
        George Herwegh                                               171
        The Tendency                                                 172
        The Child                                                    173
        The Primrose                                                 173
        The Changeling                                               174
        The Emperor of China                                         174
        Church-Counsellor Prometheus                                 175
        To the Watchman                                              176
        Consoling thoughts                                           176
        The World Turned Upside Down                                 177
        Enlightenment                                                178
        Wait Awhile!                                                 179
        Night Thoughts                                               179

NEW SPRING
    PROLOGUE                                                         180
    LYRICS                                                           180


PICTURES OF TRAVEL

THE RETURN HOME (1823-24)                                            195

THE HARTZ-JOURNEY (1821)                                             229

THE BALTIC (1825-26)
    PART I. (1825)
        Evening Twilight                                             237
        Sunset                                                       237
        The Night on the Strand                                      239
        Poseidon                                                     240
        Homage                                                       242
        Declaration                                                  242
        In the Cabin at Night                                        243
        The Storm                                                    245
        Calm at Sea                                                  246
        The Ocean-Spectre                                            247
        Purification                                                 249
        Peace                                                        249

    PART II. (1826)
        Sea Salutation                                               251
        Thunderstorm                                                 253
        The Shiprecked One                                           253
        Sunset                                                       254
        The Song of the Oceanides                                    256
        The Gods of Greece                                           258
        Questions                                                    260
        The Phœnix                                                   261
        Echo                                                         261
        Sea-Sickness                                                 262
        In Harbour                                                   263
        Epilogue                                                     265
        Monologue (from book Le Grand) 1826                          266


ATTA TROLL, a Summer Night’s Dream                                   267

GERMANY, a Winter Tale                                               326

ROMANCERO
    BOOK I. HISTORIES
        Rhampsenitus                                                 380
        The White Elephant                                           382
        Knave of Bergen                                              387
        The Valkyres                                                 388
        Hastings’ Battle-field                                       389
        Charles I.                                                   392
        Marie Antoinette                                             393
        The Silesian Weavers                                         395
        Pomare                                                       395
        The Apollo God                                               398
        Hymn to King Louis                                           401
        Two Knights                                                  402
        Our Marine (_A Nautical Tale_)                               404
        The Golden Calf                                              405
        King David                                                   405
        King Richard                                                 406
        The Asra                                                     406
        The Nuns                                                     407
        Palgravine Jutta                                             408
        The Moorish King                                             409
        Geoffrey Rudèl and Melisanda of Tripoli                      411
        The Poet Ferdusi                                             412
        Voyage by Night                                              417
        The Prelude                                                  418
        Vitzliputzli                                                 420
    BOOK II. LAMENTATIONS
        Wood Solitude                                                434
        Spanish Lyrics                                               438
        The Ex-living One                                            445
        The Ex-Watchman                                              446
        Mythology                                                    449
        In Matilda’s Album                                           449
        To the Young                                                 449
        The Unbeliever                                               450
        Whither Now?                                                 450
        An Old Song                                                  451
        Ready Money                                                  452
        The Old Rose                                                 452
        Auto-da-Fe                                                   452
        LAZARUS
            The Way of the World                                     453
            Retrospect                                               453
            Resurrection                                             454
            The Dying One                                            455
            Rascality                                                455
            Retrospect                                               456
            Imperfection                                             456
            Pious Warning                                            457
            The Cooled-down One                                      457
            Solomon                                                  458
            Lost Wishes                                              458
            The Anniversary                                          459
            Meeting Again                                            460
            Mrs. Care                                                460
            To the Angels                                            461
            In October, 1849                                         461
            Evil Dreams                                              463
            It Goes Out                                              464
            The Will                                                 464
            Enfant Perdu                                             465
    BOOK III. HEBREW MELODIES
        Princess Sabbath                                             466
        Jehuda Ben Halevy                                            470
        Disputation                                                  492

LATEST POEMS (1853-54)
    MISCELLANEOUS
        Peace Yearning                                               504
        In May                                                       504
        Body and Soul                                                505
        Red Slippers                                                 506
        Babylonian Sorrows                                           507
        The Slave Ship                                               508
        Affrontenburg                                                512
        Appendix to “Lazarus”                                        514
        The Dragon Fly                                               520
        Ascension                                                    521
        The Affianced Ones                                           524
        The Philanthropist                                           525
        The Whims of the Amorous                                     527
        Mimi                                                         529
        Good Advice                                                  530
        Reminiscences of Hammonia                                    531
        The Robbers                                                  533
        The Young Cats’ Club for Poetry-Music                        533
        Hans Lack-Land                                               535
        Recollections from Krähwinkel’s Days of Terror               537
        The Audience (an old Fable)                                  538
        Kobes I.                                                     539
        Epilogue
    ADDENDA
        The Song of Songs                                            545
        The Suttler’s Song (from the Thirty Years’ War)              546

POSTHUMOUS POEMS
        Horse and Ass                                                548
        The Ass-Election                                             550
        Bertha                                                       552
        In the Cathedral                                             552
        The Dragon-fly                                               553
        Old Scents                                                   554
        Miserere                                                     555
        To Matilda                                                   556
        For the “Mouche”                                             556




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.


A new edition of this work having been called for, owing to the first
edition having been for some time out of print, I have taken advantage
of the opportunity to add translations of a remarkable collection of
Poems by Heine, published for the first time since the appearance of my
work in 1859. They consist of as many as twelve hundred lines, described
partly as “Early Poems,” which will be found at the beginning of the
volume, and partly as “Posthumous Poems,” which are placed at the end.
The metres of the original have been again retained throughout.

Various errors discovered by me in the first edition have now been
corrected; and it only remains for me to express my thanks for the kind
manner in which the critical and the general public, both in England and
abroad, have received the work, and for the indulgence extended by them
to its many imperfections.

E. A. B.




PREFACE.


It may perhaps be thought that I exhibit something of the
brazen-facedness of a hardened offender in venturing once more (but, I
hope, for the last time) to present myself to the public in the guise of
a translator,--and, what is more, a translator of a great poet. The
favourable reception, however, that my previous translations of the
Poems of Schiller and Goethe have met with at the hands of the public,
may possibly be admitted as some excuse for this new attempt to make
that public acquainted with the works of a third great German minstrel.
Comparatively little known and little appreciated in England, the name
of Heine is in Germany familiar as a household word; and while, on the
one hand, many of his charming minor poems have become dear to the
hearts of thousands and tens of thousands of his fellow-countrymen, and
are sung alike in the palace and the cottage, in the country and the
town, on the other his sterner works have done much to influence the
political and religious tendencies of the modern German school.

Having prefixed to this Volume a brief memoir of Heine, accompanied by a
few observations on his various works and their distinguishing
characteristics, I will here confine myself to stating that I have
adhered with the utmost strictness to the principles laid down by me for
my guidance in the case of the previous translations attempted by
me,--those principles being (1) As close and literal an adherence to the
original as is consistent with good English and with poetry, and (2) the
preservation throughout the work of the original metres, of which Heine
presents an almost unprecedented variety. I have, on the occasion of my
former publications, fully explained my reasons for adopting this
course, and will not weary the reader with repeating them. I have
sufficient evidence before me of the approval of the public in this
respect to induce me to frame my translation of Heine’s Poems on the
same model.

In addition to thus preserving both the language and the metre of the
original, I have in one other respect endeavoured to reproduce my author
precisely as I found him, and that is in the important particular of
_completeness_. There are doubtless many poems written by Heine that one
could wish had never been written, and that one would willingly refrain
from translating. But the omission of these would hide from the reader
some of Heine’s chief peculiarities, and would tend to give him an
incomplete if not incorrect notion of what the poet was. A translator no
more assumes the responsibility of his author’s words than a faithful
Editor does, and he goes beyond his province if he omits whatever does
not happen to agree with his own notions.

In claiming for the present work (extending over more than 20,000
verses) the abstract merits of literalness, completeness, and rigid
adherence to the metrical peculiarities of the original, it is very far
from my intention to claim any credit for the _manner_ in which I have
executed that difficult task, or to pretend that I have been successful
in it. That is a question for the reader alone to decide. The credit of
conscientiousness and close application in the matter is all that I
would venture to assert for myself. All beyond is left exclusively to
the candid, and, I would fain hope, generous, appreciation of those whom
I now voluntarily constitute my judges.




HEINRICH HEINE.


Although little more than three years have elapsed since Heinrich Heine
was first numbered amongst the dead, his name has long been enrolled in
the lists of fame. Even during his lifetime he had the good
fortune,--and, in a poet, the most unusual good fortune,--of being
generally accepted as a Representative Man, and of passing as the
National Bard of Young Germany. Although perhaps scarcely entitled to
rank with Goethe and Schiller in the very highest order of poets, the
name of Heine will assuredly always occupy a prominent place amongst the
minstrels not only of Germany, but of the world.

It is only recently that his works have been for the first time
published in an absolutely complete form, the poetry extending over more
than two of the six volumes of which they consist. Universally known and
read in his native land, and highly popular in France, which was for so
many years his adopted country, the works of Heine are to the generality
of Englishmen (as stated in the Preface) almost entirely unknown. As the
present volume is, as far as I am aware, the only attempt that has been
made to bring the far-famed poems of Heine in their integrity before the
English reader,[1] it seems desirable to preface it by a brief sketch of
his life, so that in seeing _what_ Heine is as a poet, we may be able to
form some idea as to _who_ he was as a man. One who has been compared in
turns to Aristophanes, Rabelais, Burns, Cervantes, Sterne, Jean Paul,
Voltaire, Swift, Byron, and Béranger (and to all these has he been
likened), can be of no common stamp. The discrepancies both as to facts
and dates that occur between the various biographies of Heine are,
however, so numerous, that it has been no easy task to avoid error in
the following brief sketch of his life.

Heinrich (or Henry) Heine was born in the Bolkerstrasse, at Dusseldorf,
on the 12th of December, 1799; but, singularly enough, the exact date of
his birth was, until recently, unknown to his biographers, who, on the
authority of a saying of his own, assigned it to the 1st of January,
1800, which he boasted made him “the first man of the century.” In
reply, however, to a specific inquiry addressed to him by a friend on
this subject a few years before his death, he stated that he was really
born on the day first mentioned, and that the date of 1800 usually given
by his biographers was the result of an error voluntarily committed by
his family in his favour at the time of the Prussian invasion, in order
to exempt him from the service of the king of Prussia.

By birth he was a Jew, both of his parents having been of that
persuasion. He was the eldest of four children, and his two brothers are
(or were recently) still alive, the one being a physician in Russia, and
the other an officer in the Austrian service. The famous Solomon Heine,
the banker of Hamburg, whose wealth was only equalled by his
philanthropy, was his uncle. His father, however, was far from being in
opulent circumstances. When quite a child, he took delight in reading
Don Quixote, and used to cry with anger at seeing how ill the heroism of
that valiant knight was requited. He says somewhere, speaking of his
boyish days, “apple-tarts” were then my passion. Now it is love, truth,
freedom, and “crab-soup.” He received his earliest education at the
Franciscan convent in his native town, and while there had the
misfortune to be the innocent cause of the death by drowning of a
schoolfellow, an incident recorded in one of the poems in his
“Romancero.” He mentions the great effect produced upon him by the
sorrowful face of a large wooden Christ which was constantly before his
eyes in the Convent. Even at that early age the germs of what has been
called “his fantastic sensibility, the food for infinite irony,” seem
to have been developing themselves. A visit of the Emperor Napoleon to
Dusseldorf when he was a boy affected him in a singular manner, and had
probably much to do with the formation of those imperialist tendencies
which are often to be noticed in his character and writings. He was next
placed in the Lyceum of Dusseldorf, and in 1816 was sent to Hamburg to
study commerce, being intended for mercantile pursuits. In 1819 he was
removed to the University at Bonn which had been founded in the previous
year, and there he had the advantage of studying under Augustus
Schlegel. He seems, however, to have remained there only six months, and
to have then gone to the University of Göttingen, where, as he tells us,
he was rusticated soon after matriculation. He next took up his abode at
Berlin, where he applied himself to the study of philosophy, under the
direction of the great Hegel, whose influence, combined with that of the
works of Spinosa, undoubtedly had much to do with the formation of
Heine’s mind, and also determined his future career. From this time we
hear no more of his turning merchant; and it is from the date of his
residence at Berlin that we may date the rise of that spirit of
universal indifference and reckless daring that so strongly
characterizes the writings of Heine. Amongst his associates at this
period may be mentioned, in addition to Hegel, Chamisso, Varnhagen von
Ense and his well-known wife Rachel, Bopp the philologist, and Grabbe,
the eccentricities of whose works were only equalled by the
eccentricities of his life.

Heine’s first volume of poetry, entitled “Gedichte” or Poems, was
published in 1822, the poems being those which, under the name of
“Youthful Sorrows,” now form the opening of his “Book of Songs.”
Notwithstanding the extraordinary success afterwards obtained by this
latter work, his first publication was very coldly received. Some of the
poems in it were written as far back as 1817,[2] and originally
appeared in the Hamburg periodical “Der Wachter” or “Watchman.” Offended
at this result, he left Berlin and returned to Göttingen in 1823, where
he took to studying law, and received the degree of Doctor in 1825. He
was baptized into the Lutheran Church in the same year, at
Heiligenstadt, near that place. He afterwards said jocularly that he
took this course to prevent M. de Rothschild treating him too
_fa-millionairely_. It is to be feared, however, from the tone of all
his works, that his nominal religious opinions sat very lightly upon him
through life. He writes as follows on this subject in 1852: “My
ancestors belonged to the Jewish religion, but I was never proud of this
descent; neither did I ever set store upon my quality of Lutheran,
although I belong to the evangelical confession quite as much as the
greatest devotees amongst my Berlin enemies, who always reproach me with
a want of religion. I rather felt humiliated at passing for a purely
human creature,--I whom the philosophy of Hegel led to suppose that I
was a god. How proud I then was of my divinity! What an idea I had of my
grandeur! Alas! that charming time has long passed away, and I cannot
think of it without sadness, now that I am lying stretched on my back,
whilst my disease is making terrible progress.”

Previous to this date, and whilst living at Berlin, Heine published (in
1823) his only two plays, “Almanzor” and “Ratcliff,” which were equally
unsuccessful on the stage and in print, and which are certainly the
least worthy of all his works. Between these two plays he inserted a
collection of poetry entitled “Lyrical Interlude,” which attracted
little attention at the time. In the year 1827, however, he republished
this collection at Hamburg, in conjunction with his “Youthful Sorrows,”
giving to the whole the title of the “Book of Songs.” In proportion to
the indifference with which his poems had been received on their first
appearance, was the enthusiasm which they now excited. They were read
with avidity in every direction, especially in the various universities,
where their influence upon the minds of the students was very great. In
the year 1852, this work had reached the tenth edition.

Heine’s next great work, his “Reisebilder,” or Pictures of Travel,
written partly in poetry and partly in prose, was published at Hamburg
at various intervals from 1826 to 1831, and, as its name implies, is
descriptive of his travels in different countries, especially in England
and Italy. The poetical portion of the “Reisebilder,” the whole of which
is translated in this volume, is divided into three parts,--“The Return
Home,” the “Hartz-Journey,” and “The Baltic,” written between 1823 and
1826. This work again met with an almost unprecedented success, and from
the date of its publication and that of the “Book of Songs,” may be
reckoned the commencement of a new era in German literature. These
remarkable poems exhibit the whole nature of Heine, free from all
disguise. The striking originality, the exuberance of fancy, and, above
all, the singular beauty and feeling of the versification that
characterize nearly the whole of them, stand out in as yet unheard-of
contrast to the intense and bitter irony that pervades them,--an irony
that spared nobody, that spared nothing, not even the most sacred
subjects being exempt from the poet’s mocking sarcasm. This
characteristic of Heine only increased as years passed on. In the later
years of his life, which were one long-continued agony, his bodily
sufferings offer some excuse, it may be, for what would otherwise have
been inexcusable in the writings of a great poet. There was doubtless
much affectation in the want of all religious and political faith that
is so signally apparent in the works of Heine, and yet they betray a
real bitterness of feeling that cannot be mistaken. At every page may be
traced the malicious pleasure felt by him in exciting the sympathy and
admiration of the reader to the highest pitch, and then with a few
words,--with the last line or the last verse of a long poem, it may
be,--rudely insulting them, and