Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PICTURES OF TRAVEL: THE BALTIC, PART 2: 6. THE GODS OF GREECE, by HEINRICH HEINE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PICTURES OF TRAVEL: THE BALTIC, PART 2: 6. THE GODS OF GREECE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Full-blossoming moon! In thy fair light
Last Line: The stars all-eternal.
Subject(s): Goddesses & Gods; Greece; Mythology; Mythology - Classical; Greeks


FULL-BLOSSOMING moon! In thy fair light
Like liquid gold, the ocean gleams:
Like daylight's clearness, yet charm'd into twilight,
Over the strand's wide plain all is lying;
In the starless clear azure heavens
Hover the snowy clouds,
Like colossal figures of deities
Of glittering marble.

No, 'tis not so, no clouds can they be!
'Tis they themselves, the Gods of old Hellas,
Who once so joyously ruled o'er the world,
But now, tormented and perish'd,
Like monster spectres are moving along
Over the midnight heaven.

Wond'ring and strangely blinded, observed I
The airy pantheon,
The solemnly mute and fearfully moving
Figures gigantic.

He yonder's Cronion, the monarch of heaven;
Snow-white are the locks of his head,
Locks so famous for shaking Olympus;
He holds in his hand his extinguished bolt,
And in his face lie misfortune and grief,
And yet without change his olden pride.
Those times indeed were better, O Zeus,
When thou didst take pleasure divinely
In youths and in nymphs and in hecatombs!
But even the Gods can reign not for ever,
The younger press hard on their elders,
As thou didst once on thy grey-headed father
And all thy Titan uncles hard press,
Jupiter Parricida!
Thee, too, I recognise, haughty Here!
Spite of all thy jealous anxiety,
Hath another thy sceptre obtain'd,
And thou art no longer the queen of the heavens,
And fixed is now thy beaming eye,
And powerless lie thy lily-white arms,
And never more thy vengeance can reach
The God-impregnated virgin,
And the wonder-working son of the deity.
Thee, too, I recognise, Pallas Athene!
With shield and wisdom couldest thou not
Avert the destruction of deities?
Thee, too, I recognise, thee, Aphrodite!
Erst the golden one! now the silver one!
True thou'rt still deck'd with the charms of thy girdle,
Yet I secretly tremble at thought of thy beauty,
And would I enjoy thy bountiful charms,
Like heroes before me, of fear I should die;
To me thou appearest the goddess of corpses,
Venus Libitina!
No longer with love is tow'rd thee looking,
Yonder, the terrible Ares;
And sadly is looking Phoebus Apollo,
The stripling. His lyre is silent
That sounded so joyous at feasts of the Gods.
Still sadder appeareth Hephaestus,
And truly, the lame one! no longer
Fills he the office of Hebe,
And busily pours, in the Gods' congregation,
The nectar delicious -- And long is extinguish'd
The inextinguishable laughter of deities.

O ye Gods, I never could love you,
For ever distasteful I've found the Grecians,
And e'en the Romans I greatly hate.
Yet holy compassion and shuddering pity
Stream through my heart,
When I now behold you on high,
Godheads deserted,
Dead and night-wandering shadows,
Misty and weak, scared by the very wind --
And when I bethink me how airy and cowardly
The godheads are, who overcame you,
The new, now-ruling, mournful godheads,
The mischievous ones in the sheepskin of meekness,
Then over me steals a glorious resentment,
And fain would I break the new-born temples,
And fight on your side, ye ancient deities,
For you, and your good ambrosial rights,
And before your lofty altars,
The once-more-restored, the sacrifice-steaming,
Fain would I kneel down and pray,
And, praying, raise tow'rd you my arms. --

For evermore, ye ancient deities,
Have ye been wont, in the combats of mortals,
To join yourselves to the side of the victor,
And therefore is man more high-minded than ye.
And in combats of deities deem I it right
To take the part of the vanquish'd deities.

* * * *

Thus did I speak, and visibly redden'd
Yon pale cloudy figures on high,
And on me they gazed like dying ones,
Sorrow-illumined, and suddenly vanish'd.
The moon, too, hid herself
Behind the clouds that darkly came over her
High up roared the sea,
And then triumphantly stood in the heavens
The stars all-eternal.





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