BY Düsseldorf the singing Rhine-Stream bends, Age-wonted from his earlier lyric tone: A master-singer somewhat pensive grown, In more of epic stateliness he wends Where Youth, in memory only, still attends With foregone passions, raptures long since flown; So sweeps he down from Minster-crowned Cologne, And to the silent, level sea descends. Not such, O Heine, thy mad stream of song! Though now beyond our fitful ocean's hem The eternal tide of beauty harbor thee, Thou fleddest the broken crags of life along, Beating white flowers of foam out over them, And passionately soughtest thy mother-sea! |