Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MISERERE, by HEINRICH HEINE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MISERERE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The sons of fortune I envy not
Last Line: For ever -- o miserere.
Subject(s): Catholics; Fate; Fortune; Roman Catholics; Catholicism; Destiny


THE sons of Fortune I envy not
For their lives, in pleasure vying,
I envy them only their happy death,
Their easy and painless dying.

In gala dresses, with garlanded heads,
Their lips in laughter extended,
They joyously sit at the banquet of life, --
The sickle falls, -- all is ended!

In festal attire, with roses adorn'd,
Still blooming with life, these glad mortals,
These fav'rites of fortune reach at last
The shadowy realm's dark portals.

They ne'er were disfigured by fever's attack,
They die with a joyous demeanour,
And gladly are welcomed at her sad court
By Proserpine, hell's Czarina.

O how I envy a fate like theirs!
Seven years I daily languish
For death, as on the ground I writhe
In bitter and speechless anguish.

O God! my agony shorten, that I
May be buried, -- my sole ambition.
Thou knowest that I no talent possess
For filling a martyr's position.

I feel astonished, gracious Lord,
At a course so unconsequential;
Thou madest a joyous poet, without
That joy that is so essential.

My torments blunt each feeling of mirth,
And melancholy make me;
Unless I get better ere long, to the faith
Of a Catholic I must betake me.

Like other good Christians, I then shall howl
In thine ears my wailings dreary --
The best of humorists then will be lost
For ever -- O Miserere.





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