Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GERMANY; A WINTER TALE: CAPUT 6, by HEINRICH HEINE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

GERMANY; A WINTER TALE: CAPUT 6, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: On paganini used always to wait
Last Line: "I'm the deed which thy thoughts engender."
Subject(s): Germany; Germans


ON Paganini used always to wait
A Spiritus Familiaris,
Ofttimes as a dog, ofttimes in the shape
Of the late lamented George Harris.

Napoleon, before each important event,
Saw a man in red, as they mention,
And Socrates he had his Daemon too,
No fanciful mere invention.

E'en I, when I sat at my table to write,
When the darkness of night had entwined me,
Have sometimes seen a muffled form,
Mysteriously standing behind me.

Hid under his mantle, a Something he held,
And when the light happen'd to catch it,
It strangely gleam'd, and methought 'twas an axe,
An executioner's hatchet.

His stature appear'd to be under the mean,
His eyes like very stars glisten'd;
He never disturb'd me as I wrote,
But quietly stood there, and listen'd.

For many a year I had ceased to see
This very singular fellow,
But found him here suddenly at Cologne,
In the moonlight silent and mellow.

I saunter'd thoughtfully through the streets,
And saw him behind me stalking,
Just like my shadow, and when I stood still,
He also left off walking.

He stood, as if he were waiting for me,
And when I onward hurried,
He follow'd again, and thus I reach'd
The Cathedral yard, quite flurried.

I could not bear it, so turn'd sharp round,
And said: "I insist on an answer;
"Why follow me thus in the silent night,
"And lead me this wandering dance, Sir?

"I come across thee just at the time
"When world-wide feelings are dashing
"Across my breast, and through my brain
"The spirit-lightnings are flashing.

"Thou gazest upon me so fixedly --
"Now answer me, what is there hidden
"Beneath thy mantle that secretly gleams?
"Thy business say, when thou'rt bidden."

The other replied in a somewhat dry tone,
If not a little phlegmatic:
"I pray thee, exorcise me not,
"And be not quite so emphatic!

"No ghost am I from the days gone by,
"No grave-arisen spectre;
"I have no affection for rhetoric,
"I'm no philosophic projector.

"I am of a practical nature in fact,
"And of silent resolution;
"But know, that whatever thy spirit conceives,
"I put into execution.

"And even when years have pass'd away,
"I rest not, nor suffer distraction,
"Till I've changed to reality all thy thoughts;
"Thine's the thinking, and mine is the action.

"The judge art thou, and the jailer am I,
"And, like a servant obedient,
"The judgments execute pleasing to thee,
"Whether right or inexpedient.

'Before the Consul they carried an axe
"In Rome of old, let me remind thee
"And thou hast also thy lictor, but he
"Now carries the axe behind thee.

"Thy lictor am I, and follow behind,
"And carry in all its splendour
"The polish'd executioner's axe --
"I'm the deed which thy thoughts engender."





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