Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ROMANCERO: BOOK 1. HISTORIES: THE PRELUDE, by HEINRICH HEINE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ROMANCERO: BOOK 1. HISTORIES: THE PRELUDE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This, then, is america!
Last Line: Of the flag of barbarossa.
Subject(s): United States; America


THIS, then, is America!
This indeed the new world is!
Not the present, which already
Europeanized, is with'ring. --

This indeed the new world is,
As by Christopher Columbus
From the ocean extricated;
In its billowy freshness gleams it,

With its watery pearls still dripping,
Which are scatter'd, colour-sprinkling,
When the sunlight fair it kisses.
O how healthy this new world is!

'Tis no churchyard of romance,
'Tis no ancient Scherbenberg,
All made up of mouldy symbols,
And of petrified perukes.

From the healthy earth are shooting
Healthy trees, and none amongst them
Blase is, or has consumption
Eating up its spinal marrow.

On the branches are disporting
Mighty birds. Of chequer'd colours
Is their plumage. With their solemn
Lengthy beaks, and eyes encircled

With black marks, like spectacles,
They in silence gaze upon thee,
Till they shriek with sudden clamour
And like washerwomen chatter.

Yet I know not what they're saying,
Notwithstanding that I'm learned
In birds' tongues as Solomon,
Who a thousand wives rejoiced in,

And with birds' tongues was acquainted, --
Not the modern ones alone,
But all dialects whatever,
Whether dead, or old, or worn-out.

New the land is, new the flowers!
New the flowers and new the fragrance!
Fragrance wild, and never heard of,
Piercing sweetly through my nostrils,

Teasing, prickling, full of passion --
And my subtle sense of smelling
Racks itself with meditating:
"Where have I e'er smelt this odour?

"Was't in Regent Street, perchance,
"In the sunny arms so yellow
"Of that Javanese thin woman
"Who was always eating flowers?

"Was it else at Rotterdam,
"Near the Column of Erasmus,
"In the wafer-shop notorious
"With its most mysterious curtain?"

Whilst I in this puzzled fashion
The new world was contemplating,
Seeming to instil into it
Still more bashfulness, -- a monkey,

Who, affrighted, sought the bushes,
Cross'd himself at my appearance,
Crying with alarm: "A Spirit!
"Yes, a Spirit from the old world!" --

"Monkey, be not thus confounded!
"I'm no spirit, I'm no spectre;
"Life within my veins is boiling,
"I'm life's most true-hearted son.

"Yet by living many years
"With the dead, have I adopted
"Dead men's manners very likely,
"And peculiar ways of thinking.

"All the fairest years of life
"Spent I in Kyffhauser's cavern,
"In the Venusberg, and other
"Catacombs of the Romantic.

"Have no fear of me, good monkey!
"Thee I like, for on thy hairless
"Tann'd and shaven hinder-quarters
"Thou dost bear my fav'rite colours." --

Darling colours! Black-red-golden!
Yes, these monkey-buttock-colours,
Sorrowfully they remind me
Of the flag of Barbarossa.





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