Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ATTA TROLL; A SUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM: CAPUT 4, by HEINRICH HEINE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ATTA TROLL; A SUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM: CAPUT 4, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Ronceval, thou noble valley!
Last Line: Capers here and there thus strangely.
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Nature


RONCEVAL, thou noble valley!
Whensoe'er I hear thy name,
That blue flower so long departed
O'er my bosom sheds its fragrance!

Then the glitt'ring dream-world rises
Which for thousand years had faded,
And the mighty spirit-eyes
Gaze upon me, till I'm awe-struck!

Rattling sounds awake. There struggle
Saracen and Frankish knight;
As though bleeding and despairing
Ring Orlando's bugle-notes

In the vale of Ronceval,
Hard beside Orlando's gap --
Christen'd thus, because the hero,
Seeking how to force a passage,

With his trusty sword Duranda
Struck with such death-dealing fury
On the wall of rock, that plainly
To this day are seen its traces --

There within a gloomy hollow,
Close surrounded by a thicket
Of wild fir-trees, safely hidden,
Lies the cave of Atta Troll.

In the bosom of his fam'ly
Rests he after all the hardships
Of his flight and the distresses
Of his public show and travels.

Sweet the meeting! all his young ones
Found he in that happy cavern
Where with Mumma he begot them, --
Four his sons, and daughters two.

Well-lick'd maidens were the latter,
Fair their hair, like parsons' daughters
Brown the youths, the youngest only
With the single ear is black.

Now this youngest was the darling
Of his mother, who when playing
Happen'd once to bite his ear off,
And for very love she ate it.

He's a very genial stripling,
At gymnastics very clever,
And he turns a somersault
Like the posture-master Massmann.

Sprig of autochthonic humour,
He his mother-tongue loves only,
And has never learnt the jargon
Of the Grecian and the Roman.

Fresh and free and good and merry,
Soap he holds in detestation,
(Luxury of modern washing,)
Like the posture-master Massmann.

But our young friend is most genial
Where upon the tree he clambers,
Which along the steepest rock-side
From the deep abyss upriseth,

And extendeth to the summit,
When the family at night-time
Gather all around their father,
Toying in the evening coolness.

Then the old one loves to tell them
What he in the world has witness'd;
How he many men and cities
Had beheld, and greatly suffer'd,

Like Laertes' noble offspring,
But in one thing still unlike him, --
Namely, that his wife went with him,
His dear black Penelope.

Atta Troll then also tells them
Of the wondrous approbation
That he, by his skill in dancing,
Had acquired in ev'ry quarter.

He assured them young and old
Had exultingly admired him,
When he danced upon the market
To the sweet notes of the bagpipe.

In particular the ladies,
Those dear connoisseurs of all things,
Had with vehemence applauded,
And had ogled him with favour.

O the vanity of Artists!
Our old dancing bear with simpers
Calls to mind the time when late he
To the public show'd his talent.

Overcome by self laudation,
He would fain by act exhibit
That he's no mere boaster only,
But a really first-rate dancer.

From the ground then sudden springs he,
On his hinder paws upstanding,
And, as formerly, he dances
The gavotte, his favourite dance.

Mute, with muzzles gaping open,
The young bears look on with wonder,
While their father in the moonlight
Capers here and there thus strangely.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net