A heine love song
The image of the moon at night
All trembling in the ocean lies,
But she, with calm and steadfast light,
Moves proudly through the radiant skies,
How like the tranquil moon thou art--
Thou fairest flower of womankind!
And, look, within my fluttering heart
Thy image trembling is enshrined!
poem by Eugene Field
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To Venus
Venus, dear Cnidian-Paphian queen!
Desert that Cyprus way off yonder,
And fare you hence, where with incense
My Glycera would have you fonder;
And to your joy bring hence your boy,
The Graces with unbelted laughter,
The Nymphs, and Youth,--then, then, in sooth,
Should Mercury come tagging after.
poem by Eugene Field
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Inscription for my little son's silver plate
When thou dost eat from off this plate,
I charge thee be thou temperate;
Unto thine elders at the board
Do thou sweet reverence accord;
And, though to dignity inclined,
Unto the serving-folk be kind;
Be ever mindful of the poor,
Nor turn them hungry from the door;
And unto God, for health and food
And all that in thy life is good,
Give thou thy heart in gratitude.
poem by Eugene Field
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A paraphrase
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name;
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, in Heaven the same;
Give us this day our daily bread, and may our debts to heaven--
As we our earthly debts forgive--by Thee be all forgiven;
When tempted or by evil vexed, restore Thou us again,
And Thine be the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, forever and ever;
amen.
poem by Eugene Field
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Heine's "Widow or Daughter?"
Shall I woo the one or other?
Both attract me--more's the pity!
Pretty is the widowed mother,
And the daughter, too, is pretty.
When I see that maiden shrinking,
By the gods I swear I'll get 'er!
But anon I fall to thinking
That the mother 'll suit me better!
So, like any idiot ass
Hungry for the fragrant fodder,
Placed between two bales of grass,
Lo, I doubt, delay, and dodder!
poem by Eugene Field
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Uhland's
Yonder stands the hillside chapel
Mid the evergreens and rocks,
All day long it hears the song
Of the shepherd to his flocks.
Then the chapel bell goes tolling-
Knelling for a soul that's sped;
Silent and sad the shepherd lad
Hears the requiem for the dead.
Shepherd, singers of the valley,
Voiceless now, speed on before;
Soon shall knell that chapel bell
For the songs you'll sing no more.
poem by Eugene Field
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Quitting Again
The hero of
Affairs of love
By far too numerous to be mentioned,
And scarred as I'm,
It seemeth time
That I were mustered out and pensioned.
So on this wall
My lute and all
I hang, and dedicate to Venus;
And I implore
But one thing more
Ere all is at an end between us.
O goddess fair
Who reignest where
The weather's seldom bleak and snowy,
This boon I urge:
In anger scourge
My old cantankerous sweetheart, Chloe!
poem by Eugene Field
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A Paraphrase, By Dr. I.W.
Why, Mistress Chloe, do you bother
With prattlings and with vain ado
Your worthy and industrious mother,
Eschewing them that come to woo?
Oh, that the awful truth might quicken
This stern conviction to your breast:
You are no longer now a chicken
Too young to quit the parent nest.
So put aside your froward carriage,
And fix your thoughts, whilst yet there's time,
Upon the righteousness of marriage
With some such godly man as I'm.
poem by Eugene Field
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The Dying Year
The year has been a tedious one--
A weary round of toil and sorrow,
And, since it now at last is gone,
We say farewell and hail the morrow.
Yet o'er the wreck which time has wrought
A sweet, consoling ray is shimmered--
The one but compensating thought
That literary life has glimmered.
Struggling with hunger and with cold
The world contemptuously beheld 'er;
The little thing was one year old--
But who'd have cared had she been elder?
poem by Eugene Field
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Mother and child
One night a tiny dewdrop fell
Into the bosom of a rose,--
"Dear little one, I love thee well,
Be ever here thy sweet repose!"
Seeing the rose with love bedight,
The envious sky frowned dark, and then
Sent forth a messenger of light
And caught the dewdrop up again.
"Oh, give me back my heavenly child,--
My love!" the rose in anguish cried;
Alas! the sky triumphant smiled,
And so the flower, heart-broken, died.
poem by Eugene Field
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