The poems of Heine; Complete. Heinrich Heine

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      But at night-time in the valley

       Wondrous forms appear again;

       At the stroke of twelve, forth sally

       To the fight the brothers twain.

      4. POOR PETER.

      I.

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      While Hans and Grettel are dancing with glee,

       And each of them loudly rejoices,

       Poor Peter looks as pale as can be,

And perfectly mute his voice is.

      While Hans and Grettel are bridegroom and bride,

       And glitter in smart ostentation,

       Poor Peter must still in his working dress bide,

       And bites his nails with vexation.

      Then softly Peter said to himself,

       As he gazed on the couple sadly:

       “Ah, had I not been such a sensible elf,

       It had fared with my life but badly!”

II.

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      “Within my breast there sits a woe

       That seems my breast to sever;

       Where’er I stand, where’er I go,

       It drives me onward ever.

      “It makes me tow’rd my loved one fly,

       As if she could restore me;

       Yet when I gaze upon her eye,

       My sorrows rise before me.

      “I clamber up the mountain now,

       In lonely sorrow creeping,

       And standing silent on its brow,

       I cannot cease from weeping.”

III.

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      Poor Peter slowly totters by,

       Pale as a corpse, and stealthily;

       The very people in the street

       Stand still, when his sad form they meet.

      The maidens whisper’d as they pitied:

       “The grave he has this moment quitted.”

       Ah no, my dear young maidens fair,

       He’s just about to lie down there!

      As he is of his love bereft,

       The grave’s the best place that is left,

       Where he his aching heart may lay,

       And sleep until the Judgment Day.

      5. THE PRISONER’S SONG.

      When my grandmother once had bewitch’d a poor girl,

       The mob would have burnt her quite readily;

       But though fiercely the judge his mustachios might twirl,

She refused to confess her crime steadily.

      And when in the caldron they held her fast,

       She shouted and yell’d like a craven;

       But when the black vapour arose, she at last

       Flew up in the air as a raven.

      My black and feathery grandmother dear,

       O visit me soon in this tower!

       Quick, fly through the grating, and come to me here,

       And bring me some cakes to devour!

      My black and feathery grandmother dear,

       O prythee protect me from sorrow!

       For my aunt will be picking my eyes out, I fear,

       When I merrily soar hence to-morrow.

      6. THE GRENADIERS

      Two grenadiers travell’d tow’rds France one day,

       On leaving their prison in Russia,

       And sadly they hung their heads in dismay

       When they reach’d the frontiers of Prussia.

      For there they first heard the story of woe,

       That France had utterly perish’d,

       The grand army had met with an overthrow,

       They had captured their Emperor cherish’d.

      Then both of the grenadiers wept full sore

       At hearing the terrible story;

       And one of them said: “Alas! once more

       My wounds are bleeding and gory.”

      The other one said: “The game’s at an end,

       With thee I would die right gladly,

       But I’ve wife and child, whom at home I should tend,

       For without me they’ll fare but badly.

      “What matters my child, what matters my wife?

       A heavier care has arisen;

       Let them beg, if they’re hungry, all their life—

       My Emperor sighs in a prison!

      “Dear brother, pray grant me this one last prayer:

       If my hours I now must number,

       O take my corpse to my country fair,

That there it may peacefully slumber.

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