Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ATTA TROLL; A SUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM: CAPUT 26, by HEINRICH HEINE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ATTA TROLL; A SUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM: CAPUT 26, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Well, and mumma? Ah, poor mumma
Last Line: "from the snow-white clouds advancing."
Subject(s): Fate; Love; Women; Destiny


WELL, and Mumma? Ah, poor Mumma
Is a woman! Frailty
Is her name! Alas! all women
Are as frail as any porcelain.

When by fate's hand she was parted
From her glorious noble husband,
She by no means died of sorrow,
Nor succumb'd to her affliction.

On the contrary, she gaily
Went on living, went on dancing
As before, with ardour wooing
For the public's daily plaudits.

Finally she found a solid
Situation, and provision
For the whole of life, at Paris
In the famed Jardin des Plantes.

When I chanced the other Sunday
With my Juliet to go thither
And expounded Nature to her.
Of the plants and beasts conversing,

Showing the giraffes and cedars
Of Mount Lebanon, the mighty
Dromedary, the gold pheasants,
And the zebra, -- as we chatted

It so happen'd that at length we
Stood before the pit's close railing
Where the bears are all collected, --
Gracious heavens, what saw we there

An enormous desert-bear
From Siberia, white and hairy,
With a lady-bear was playing
A too-tender game of love there.

And the latter was our Mumma!
Was the wife of Atta Troll!
Well I knew her by the tender
Humid glances of her eye.

Yes, 'twas she! the South's black daughter!
She it was, -- yes, Madame Mumma
With a Russian is now living,
With a Northern wild barbarian!

With a simp'ring face a negro
Who approach'd us, thus address'd me:
"Is there any sight more pleasing
"Than to see two lovers happy?"

I replied: "Pray tell me whom, Sir,
"I've the honour of addressing?"
But the other cried with wonder:
"Don't you really recollect me?

"Why, the Moorish prince am I
"Who in Freiligrath was drumming;
"Things in Germany went badly,
"I was far too isolated.

"Here, however, where as keeper
"I am station'd, where I'm living
"'Mongst the lions, plants, and tigers
"Of my home within the tropics,

"Here I find it much more pleasant
"Than your German fairs attending,
"Where I day by day was drumming
"And was fed so very badly.

"I quite recently was married
"To a fair cook from Alsatia;
"When within her arms reposing
"Feel I then at home completely.

"Her dear feet remind me closely
"Of our darling elephants;
"When she speaks in French, her language
"My black mother-tongue resembles.

"Oft she scolds me, and I think then
"Of the rattling of that drum
"Which had skulls around it hanging;
"Snake and lion fled before it.

"Yet with feeling in the moonlight
"Weeps she, like a crocodile
"Peeping from the tepid river
"To enjoy a little coolness.

"And she gives me charming tit-bits,
"And I thrive upon them, eating
"Once again, as on the Niger,
"With old African enjoyment.

"I am getting fat; my belly's
"Grown quite round, and from my shirt it
"Is projecting, like a black moon
"From the snow-white clouds advancing."





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