Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ATTA TROLL; A SUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM: CAPUT 10, by HEINRICH HEINE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ATTA TROLL; A SUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM: CAPUT 10, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Two dark figures, wild and surly
Last Line: And thy hour will sound to-morrow!
Subject(s): Hate; Life; Nature


TWO dark figures, wild and surly,
And upon their all-fours gliding,
Force their way across the gloomy
Grove of firs at midnight's hour.

This is Atta Troll, the father,
And his son, young master one-ear.
Where the wood grows somewhat lighter
By the stone of blood they halted.

"This old stone" -- growl'd Atta Troll, --
"Is the altar where the Druids
"In the days of superstition
"Human sacrifices offer'd.

"O their cruelty accursed!
"All the hair upon my back
"Bristles when I think upon it;
"Blood was pour'd out to God's honour!

"Now these men are more enlighten'd,
"And no longer kill each other
"Merely in excessive zeal
"For the interests of heaven.

"'Tis no longer pious fancies,
"Madness, nor enthusiasm,
"But mere vanity and self-love
"Makes them now commit their murders.

"On the good things of the earth
"Eagerly they're ever seizing;
"'Tis an endless round of fighting,
"For himself each person stealeth!

"Yes! the heritage of all
"Is the individual's booty;
"Of the rights, then, of possession
"Speaks he, thinking of his own!

"Of his own! Possession's rights too!
"O, the cruel theft, the lying!
"None but man could have invented
"Such commingled fraud and madness.

"Private property was never
"Made by Nature; pocketless,
"With no pockets in our skins, we
"Ev'ry one the world first entered.

Not a single one amongst us
At his birth had such a pocket
'In his body's outer skin,
"Where he might conceal his robb'ries.

"Man alone, that smooth-skinn'd being,
"Who with foreign wool so nicely
"Clothes himself, had e'er the sharpness
"To provide himself with pockets.

"Pockets! They're as much 'gainst nature
"As is private property,
"As possession's rights themselves are --
"Men in fact are but pickpockets!

"Fiercely hate I them! My hatred
"Unto thee, my son, bequeath I;
"Here upon this altar shalt thou
"Swear to man undying hatred!

"Be implacably the death-foe
"Of those wicked vile oppressors
"To the very end of life, --
"Swear it, swear it here, my son!"

And the youngster swore, as once did
Hannibal. The moon, all yellow,
On the stone of blood look'd wildly,
And the pair of misanthropes.

By-and-by we'll tell the story
How the young bear ever faithful
To his oath remain'd. Our lyre shall
In another Epic praise him.

As respects friend Atta Troll,
We will leave him for the present,
Presently to come across him,
All the surer, with a bullet.

All thy stealthy machinations,
Traitor 'gainst man's majesty,
Now at length are terminated,
And thy hour will sound to-morrow!





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