Now crashes she headforemost downward once more
Into the howling abyss of waters,
Then again, as if recklessly love-languid,
She tries to recline
On the black bosom of the gigantic waves,
Which powerfully seethe upward,
And immediately a chaotic ocean-cataract
Plunges down in crisp-curling whiteness,
And covers me with foam.
This shaking and swinging and tossing
Is unendurable!
Vainly mine eye peers forth and seeks
The German coast. But alas! only water,
And everywhere water—turbulent water!
Even as the traveller in winter, thirsts
For a warm cordial cup of tea,
So does my heart now thirst for thee
My German fatherland.
May thy sweet soil ever be covered
With lunacy, hussars and bad verses,
And thin, lukewarm treatises.
May thy zebras ever be fattened
On roses instead of thistles.
Ever may thy noble apes
Haughtily strut in negligent attire,
And esteem themselves better than all other
Priggish heavy-footed, horned cattle.
May thine assemblies of snails
Ever deem themselves immortal
Because they crawl forward so slowly;
And may they daily convoke in full force,
To discuss whether the cheesemould belongs to the cheese;
And still longer may they convene
To decide how best to honor the Egyptian sheep,
So that its wool may improve
And it may be shorn like others,
With no difference.
Forever may folly and wrong
Cover thee all over, oh Germany,
Nevertheless I yearn towards thee—
For at least thou art dry land.
X. IN PORT.
Happy the man who has reached port,
And left behind the sea and the tempest,
And who now sits, quietly and warm,
In the goodly town-cellar of Bremen.
How pleasantly and cordially
The world is mirrored in the wine-glass.
And how the waving microcosm
Pours sunnily down into the thirsty heart!
I see everything in the glass,—
Ancient and modern tribes,
Turks and Greeks, Hegel and Gans,
Citron groves and guard-parades,
Berlin and Schilda, and Tunis and Hamburg.
Above all the image of my belovèd,
The little angel-head against the golden background of Rhine-wine.
Oh how beautiful! how beautiful thou art, belovèd!
Thou art like a rose.
Not like the Rose of Shiraz,
The Hafiz-besung bride of the nightingale.
Not like the Rose of Sharon,
The sacred purple extolled by the prophet.
Thou art like the rose in the wine-cellar of Bremen.
That is the rose of roses,
The older it grows the fairer it blooms,
And its celestial perfume has inspired me.
And did not mine host of the town-cellar of Bremen
Hold me fast, fast by my hair,
I should tumble head over heels.
The worthy man! we sat together,
And drank like brothers.
We spake of lofty, mysterious things,
We sighed and sank in each other's arms.
And he led me back to the religion of love:
I drank to the health of my bitterest enemy,
And I forgave all bad poets,
As I shall some day hope to be forgiven myself.
I wept with fervor of piety, and at last
The portals of salvation were opened to me,
Where the twelve Apostles, the holy wine-butts,
Preach in silence and yet so intelligibly
Unto all people.
Those are men!
Without, unseemly in their wooden garb,
Within, they are more beautiful and brilliant
Than all the haughty Levites of the Temple,
And the guards and courtiers of Herod,
Decked with gold and arrayed in purple.
But I have always averred
That not amidst quite common folk—
No, in the very best society,
Perpetually abides the King of Heaven.