Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PICTURES OF TRAVEL: THE BALTIC, PART 2: 11. IN HARBOUR, by HEINRICH HEINE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PICTURES OF TRAVEL: THE BALTIC, PART 2: 11. IN HARBOUR, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Happy the man who arrives safe in harbour
Last Line: Whirleth the whole of the drunken world.
Subject(s): Homecoming; Sea Voyages


HAPPY the man who arrives safe in harbour,
And behind him hath left the ocean and tempests,
And now so warmly and quietly sits,
In the townhall-cellar of Bremen!
See how the world is truly and lovingly
In the bumper fully depicted,
And how the heaving microcosm
Sunnily flows to the thirsty heart!
All I discern in the glass,
Olden and new traditions of nations,
Turks and Greeks, and Hegel and Gans,
Citron-forests and watch-parades,
Berlin and Schilda and Tunis and Hamburg,
But most of all the form of my loved one,
That angel-head on the Rhenish wine's gold ground.

O, how fair, how fair art thou, loved one!
Thou art a very rose,
Not like the rose of fair Schiras,
The nightingale's bride, of whom Hafis once sang;
Not like the r se of Sharon,
The sacred and red one, the prophet-honour'd one;
But thou'rt like the rose in the cellar at Bremen!
That is the rose of all roses,
The older she grows, the fairer she blossoms,
And her heavenly fragrance hath gladden'd my bosom,
Hath served to inspire me, served to enchant me.
And did the head of the cellar of Bremen
Not hold me fast, yes fast by my hair,
I surely had tumbled!

The worthy man! we sat together,
And drank like brethren,
We spoke of lofty mysterious things,
We sigh'd and sank in the arms of each other,
And he did convert me to love's religion,
I drank to the health of my bitterest enemies,
And every wretched poet I pardoned
As I myself for pardon would hope;
I wept with devotion, and lastly
The doors of the place were unto me open'd
Where the twelve apostles, the sacred tuns,
Silently preach, though understood plainly
By every nation.

True men indeed!
In wooden coats, from without all-invisible,
Inwardly are they more radiant and fairer
Than all the haughty priests of the temple,
And Herod's satellites cringing and courtiers,
All glitt'ring in gold and clothed in purple;
Ever my wont is to say
Not amongst the mere common people,
No, in the best and politest society,
Constantly lived the monarch of heaven.

Hallelujah! How sweetly wave round me
The palm-trees of Bethel!
How fragrant the myrrh is of Hebron!
How Jordan is roaring, and reeling with rapture,
While my immortal soul also is reeling,
And I reel with it, and whilst thus reeling,
I'm brought up the stairs and into the daylight
By the worthy head of the cellar of Bremen.

Thou worthy head of the cellar of Bremen!
See where sit on the roofs of the houses
The angels, all well-drunken and singing;
The glowing sun high up in the heavens
Is nought but the red and drunken nose
Which the World-Spirit sticks out,
And round the World-Spirit's red nose
Whirleth the whole of the drunken world.





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