Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE WATCHMAN'S ARRIVAL IN PARIS, by HEINRICH HEINE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON THE WATCHMAN'S ARRIVAL IN PARIS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Good, watchman with face so sad and despairing
Last Line: The censorship will of itself disappear.
Subject(s): France; Freedom; Germany; Liberty; Germans


"GOOD watchman with face so sad and despairing,
"Why runnest thou hither with headlong speed?
"My dear fellow-countrymen, how are they faring?
"My fatherland, is it from tyranny freed?"

All's going on well, and liberty's blessing
Is showering silently on us its stores,
And Germany, calmly and safely progressing,
Unfolds and develops herself within doors.

Unlike France, superficial are none of her blossoms, --
There freedom but touches the outside of life;
'Tis but in the depths of their innermost bosoms
That freedom with Germans is found to be rife.

They'll finish Cologne's great cathedral, they tell us,
The Hohenzollerns have brought this to pass;
A Hapsburg has shown himself equally zealous,
A Wittelsbach gives it some fine painted glass.

That true Magna Charta, a free constitution,
They've promised, and surely their promise they'll keep;
A king's word's a prize, without circumlocution, --
Like the Nibelung stone in the Rhine it lies deep.

The Brutus of rivers, the free Rhine, they surely
Can never remove him from out of his bed;
The Dutchman his feet have fasten'd securely,
The Switzers securely are holding his head.

God will grant us a fleet, if we prove persevering;
Our patriotic exuberant strength
Will find a vent in sailing and steering,
The pain of imprisonment ending at length.

The seeds cast their shells and the spring's blooming sweetly,
We draw a free breath at this time of the year;
If permission to print is denied us completely,
The censorship will of itself disappear.





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