“Was it else at Rotterdam,
“Near the Column of Erasmus,
“In the wafer-shop notorious
“With its most mysterious curtain?”
Whilst I in this puzzled fashion
The new world was contemplating,
Seeming to instil into it
Still more bashfulness,—a monkey,
Who, affrighted, sought the bushes,
Cross’d himself at my appearance,
Crying with alarm: “A Spirit!
“Yes, a Spirit from the old world!”—
“Monkey, be not thus confounded!
“I’m no spirit, I’m no spectre;
“Life within my veins is boiling,
“I’m life’s most true-hearted son.
“Yet by living many years
“With the dead, have I adopted
“Dead men’s manners very likely,
“And peculiar ways of thinking.
“All the fairest years of life
“Spent I in Kyffhauser’s cavern,
“In the Venusberg, and other
“Catacombs of the Romantic.
“Have no fear of me, good monkey!
“Thee I like, for on thy hairless
“Tann’d and shaven hinder-quarters
“Thou dost bear my fav’rite colours.”—
Darling colours! Black-red-golden!
Yes, these monkey-buttock-colours,
Sorrowfully they remind me
Of the flag of Barbarossa.