A cool poem by Heinrich Heine

We read this poem today in German class and I loved it. It is written by a Heinrich Heine, a German Jew who died in exhile in France in the mid 19th century. Here it is in German. Enjoy!


Okay, I tried to find the English translation but can't so I give up. Maybe someone who is google literate can help me out.

http://www.uah.edu/student_life/organizati...ryreading2.html translated by Joshua Harrison. Apparently in the German Club. Looking more closely, I note there's a copyright tag at the bottom of the page, so I've hidden it, but the whole thing's at the bottom of that page.

Uh, the sun comes up in the east? I mean a good movie is fucked up for me when they screw with the facts of life and this just killed it for me.

Edit: Unless the guy is living on an island off the coast of France.

"Wo bist du itzt, mein unvergesslich Mädchen,
Wo singst du itzt?
Wo lacht die Flur, wo triumphiert das Städchen,
Das dich besitzt?

Seit du entfernt, will keine Sonne scheinen,
Und es vereint
Der Himmel sich, dir zärtlich nachzuweinen,
Mit deinem Freund.

All unsre Lust st fort mit dir gezogen,
Still überall
Ist Stadt und Feld. Dir nach ist sie geflogen, Die Nachtigall.

O komm zurück! Schon rufen Hirt und Herden
Dich bang herbei.
Komm bald zurück! Sonst wird es Winter werden
Im Monat Mai."

I couldn't find a translation either, but here is some background: Heine was living in France at the time, more or less in exile as the censorship in Germany prohibited him from publishing. His mother had moved to Hamburg from Düsseldorf and he is missing her, knowing that she may die any time but Germany (which wasn't even Germany as we know it now but the Deutscher Bund consisting of various principalities, dukedoms, cities and states under the leadership of Prussia) was strong enough to go on forever. When Heine says that, it is not a compliment.
I have this passion for Heine anyway: With his romantic poems à la Loreley, his satirical Harzreise or Deutschland-Ein Wintermärchen, his radical Schlesische Weber, he was far ahead of his time. My favorite quote is "Dies war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen." (aus: „Almansor“, 1821, Vers 243f) - This was just a prelude; where books are burned they will end up burning people. In 1821! Needless to say, the Nazis burned his books with a vengance. He was born Jewish and later converted to Lutherism but had a wary eye on politicians, aristocracy and censors; compromise did not exist in his vocabulary.

Nope, he was living in Paris. No matter which direction the sun rises, it eventually shines into your window.
This one always gives me goosebumps:

Die schlesischen Weber

Im düstern Auge keine Träne,
Sie sitzen am Webstuhl und fletschen die Zähne:
"Deutschland, wir weben dein Leichentuch,
Wir weben hinein den dreifachen Fluch -
Wir weben, wir weben!

Ein Fluch dem Götzen, zu dem wir gebeten
In Winterskälte und Hungersnöten;
Wir haben vergebens gehofft und geharrt,
Er hat uns geäfft, gefoppt und genarrt -
Wir weben, wir weben!

Ein Fluch dem König, dem König der Reichen,
Den unser Elend nicht konnte erweichen,
Der den letzten Groschen von uns erpreßt
Und uns wie Hunde erschießen läßt -
Wir weben, wir weben!

Ein Fluch dem falschen Vaterlande,
Wo nur gedeihen Schmach und Schande,
Wo jede Blume früh geknickt,
Wo Fäulnis und Moder den Wurm erquickt -
Wir weben, wir weben!

Das Schiffchen fliegt, der Webstuhl kracht,
Wir weben emsig Tag und Nacht -
Altdeutschland, wir weben dein Leichentuch,
Wir weben hinein den dreifachen Fluch -
Wir weben, wir weben!

(1844)

Rad! All about weaving winding sheets for industrialization, the King of Prussia and Germany itself, first published in "Vorwärts", Karl Marx's magazine of the Communist movement.

Well, if one insists on Heine..-...

"Mit dummen Mädchen, hab'ich gedacht,
Nichts ist mit ddummen anzufangen;
Doch als ich mich an die klugen gemacht,
Da ist mir noch schlimmer ergangen.

Die Klugen waren mir viel zu klug,
Ihr Fragen machte mich ungduldig,
Und wenn ich selber das Wichtigste frug,
Da blieben sie lachend die Antwort schuldig."

Der Asra

Jeden Abend ging die schöne
Sultanstochter auf und nieder
Um die Abendzeit am Springbrunn,
Wo die weißen Wasser plätschern.

Jeden Abend stand der Sklave
Um die Abendzeit am Springbrunn,
Wo die weißen Wasser plätschern,
Täglich ward er bleich und bleicher.

Eines Abends trat die Fürsten
Auf ihn hin mit raschen Worten:
"Deinen Namen will ich wissen,
Deine Heimat, deine Sippschaft!"

Und der Sklave sprach: "Ich heiße
Mohammed, ich bin aus Jemen,
Und mein Stamm sind jene Asra,
welche sterben, wenn sie lieben."

Can't guarantee for the exact words, that was one I learned off by heart about 25 years ago. About a slave who falls in love with the princess, knowing full well that this love will kill him, but he persists. Hopeless romantic.

Bet this thread gets moved to Life in Germany soon. Or Language. But it was great while it lasted.

just read an interesting poem with some German context by Sylvia Path , thought might as well share it

Daddy

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time ----
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You ----

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two ----
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagersnever liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

For further interpretation of Heine's Poem "Der Asra" pls. check "A Two-Colored Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poetry By Annemarie Schimmel", p. 101.
Azra