The poems of Heine; Complete. Heinrich Heine

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СКАЧАТЬ Streams the throng in chequer’d masses.

      Glittering knights and stately ladies

       In gay courtly dresses sparkle,

       And the clear-toned bells are ringing,

       And the organ peals between times.

      But with reverence saluted,

       In the people’s midst are walking,

       Nobly clad, the youthful couple,

       Donna Clara, Don Fernando.

      To the bridegroom’s palace entrance

       Slowly moves the gay procession;

       There begin the ceremonies,

       Stately, and in olden fashion.

      Knightly games and merry feasting

       Interchange with loud rejoicing;

       Swiftly fly the hours thus gladly

       Till the shades of night have fallen.

      And the wedding-guests assemble

       In the hall, to hold the dances,

       And their chequer’d gala dresses

       Midst the glittering lights are sparkling.

      On a high-exalted dais

       Bride and bridegroom are reclining,

       Donna Clara, Don Fernando,

       Holding loving conversation.

      In the hall are gaily moving

       All the festal crowd of people,

       And the kettle-drums sound loudly,

       And the trumpets, too, are crashing.

      “Wherefore, O my heart’s fair mistress.

       Are thy glances so directed

       Tow’rd the hall’s most distant corner?”

       Thus the knight exclaim’d with wonder.

      “Seest thou not, then, Don Fernando,

       Yonder man in dark cloak hidden?”

       And the knight with smiling answered:

       “Ah, ’tis nothing but a shadow.”

      But the shadow soon approach’d them,

       And a man was in the mantle,

       And Ramiro recognising,

       Clara greeted him with blushes.

      And the dancing has begun now,

       And the dancers whirl round gaily

       In the waltz’s giddy mazes,

       And the ground beneath them trembles.

      “Gladly will I, Don Ramiro,

       In the dance become thy partner,

       But thou didst not well to come here

       In a black and nightlike mantle.”

      But with eyes all fix’d and piercing

       Looks Ramiro on the fair one;

       Clasping her, with gloom thus speaks he:

       “At thy bidding have I come here!”

      And the pair of dancers vanish

       In the dance’s giddy mazes,

       And the kettle-drums sound loudly,

       And the trumpets, too, are crashing.

      “Snow-white are thy cheeks, Ramiro,”

       Clara speaks with secret trembling.

       “At thy bidding have I come here!”

       In a hollow voice replies he.

      In the hall the wax-lights glimmer

       Through the ebbing, flowing masses,

       And the kettle-drums sound loudly,

       And the trumpets, too, are crashing.

      “Ice-cold are thy hands, Ramiro,”

       Clara speaks with shudd’ring terror.

       “At thy bidding have I come here!”

       And within the whirl they vanish.

      “Leave me, leave me, Don Ramiro!

       Ah, thy breath is like a corpse’s!”

       Once again the dark words speaks he

       “At thy bidding have I come here!”

      And the very ground seems glowing.

       Fiddle, viol sound right merry;

       Like a wondrous weft of magic

       All within the hall is whirling.

      “Leave me, leave me, Don Ramiro!”

       Sadly sounds amidst the tumult;

       Don Ramiro ever answers:

       “At thy bidding have I come here!”

      “In the name of God depart, then!”

       Clara with a firm voice utters,

       And the words she scarce had spoken

       When Ramiro vanish’d from her.

      Clara, death in every feature,

       Chilly, night-surrounded, stood there,

       And a swoon her lightsome figure

       To its darksome kingdom carries.

      But at last her misty slumber

       Yields, at last her eyelids open,

       But again, with deep amazement,

       Would she fain have closed her fair eyes.

      For since they began the dancing,

       From her seat had she not moved once,

       And she still sits by the bridegroom,

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