Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PICTURES OF TRAVEL: THE BALTIC, PART 1: 3. THE NIGHT ON THE STRAND, by HEINRICH HEINE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PICTURES OF TRAVEL: THE BALTIC, PART 1: 3. THE NIGHT ON THE STRAND, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Starless and cold is the night
Last Line: "and a cough that proves quite eternal."
Subject(s): Baltic Sea; Sea Voyages


STARLESS and cold is the night,
The ocean boils;
And over the sea, fiat on its belly,
Lies the misshapen Northwind;
With groaning and stifled mysterious voice,
A sullen grumbler, good-humour'd for once,
Prates he away to the waves,
Telling many a wild tradition,
Giant-legends, murderous humorous,
Primeval Sagas from Norway,
And the while, far echoing, laughs he and howls he
Exorcists' songs of the Edda,
Grey old Runic proverbs,
So darkly-daring, and magic-forcible,
That the white sons of Ocean
Spring up on high, all exulting,
In madden'd excitement.

Meanwhile, along the flat shore,
Over the flood-moisten'd sand,
Paces a stranger, whose heart within him
Is wilder far than wind and waters;
There where he walks
Sparks fly out, and shells are crackling,
And he veils himself in his dark-grey mantle,
And quickly moves on through the blustering night; --
Guided in safety by you little light,
That sweetly, invitingly glimmers,
From the lone fisherman's cottage.

Father and brother are out on the sea,
And all all alone is staying
Within the hut the fisherman's daughter,
The wondrously lovely fisherman's daughter.
By the hearth she's sitting,
And lists to the water-kettle's
Homely, sweet foreboding humming,
And shakes in the fire the crackling brush wood
And on it blows,
So that the lights, all ruddy and flickering,
Magic-sweetly are reflected
On her fair blooming features,
On her tender, snowy shoulder,
Which, moving gently, peeps
From out her coarse grey smock,
And on her little, anxious hand,
Which fastens firmer her under-garment,
Over her graceful hip.

But sudden, the door bursts open,
The nightly stranger entereth in;
Love-secure, his eye reposes
On the snowy, slender maiden,
Who, trembling, near him stands,
Like to a startled lily;
And he throws his mantle to earth,
And laughs and speaks:

"See now, my child, I've kept my word,
"And I come, and with me hath come
"The olden time, when the gods from the heavens
"Came down to earth, to the daughters of mortals,
"And the daughters of mortals embraced they,
"And from them there issued
"Sceptre-bearing races of monarchs,
"And heroes, wonders of earth.

"But start not, my child, any longer
"Because of my godhead,
"And I pray thee give me some tea mix'd with rum,
"For 'tis cold out of doors,
"And amid such night breezes
"Freeze even we, we godheads immortal,
"And easily catch the divinest of colds,
"And a cough that proves quite eternal."





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