Other seasons, other songsters!
Other songsters, other ditties!
What a cackling, as of geese, which
Once preserved the Capitol!
Other seasons, other songsters!
Other songsters, other ditties!
I might take a pleasure also
In them had I other ears!
FOOTNOTES:
[E] Heinrich Heine was born on December 13, 1797, at Düsseldorf, the son of Jewish parents. After quitting school he was sent to Frankfort to the banking establishment of an uncle, but a commercial career failed to appeal to him, and in 1819 he entered the University of Bonn, with a view of studying for law. His thoughts, however, were given to poetry; and 1822 saw the publication of his first volume of poems. Up to this time he was largely dependent upon the generosity of his uncle. Thus, in order to fulfil his obligations, he entered the University of Göttingen, where he obtained his degree of law, having previously qualified himself for practice by renouncing the Jewish faith for Christianity. A voluminous prose-writer, a wonderful satirist, and an ardent politician, Heine's present-day fame rests largely on his poetry, and especially the wonderful lyrical pieces. "Atta Troll" (1846), which has been described as the "Swan-song of Romanticism," was written in the hey-day of his activities, and admirably conveys something of the temper and genius of its many-sided author. Heine died on February 17. 1856.