HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

Heinrich Heine
And groweth wan and gray;
On the banquet-table spread.
Fruits and flowers grow black and dead.
Nectar cold in every cup
Gleams to blood and withers up;
Aphrodite breathes a charm,
Gripping Pallas' bronzed arm;
Zeus the Father clenches teeth,
While his cloud-throne shakes beneath;
The passion-flower in Hera's hair melts in a snowy
wreath!
Ah, woe! ah, woe!
One climbeth from below, —
A mortal shape with pallid smile doth rise,
Bearing a heavy Cross and crowned with thorn, —
His brow is moist with blood, his strange sweet eyes
Look piteous and forlorn:
Hark! Oh hark! his cold foot-fall
Breaks upon the banquet-hall!
God and goddess start to hear.
Earth, air, ocean, moan in fear;
Shadows of the Cross and Him
Make the banquet-table dim,
Silent sit the gods divine.
Old and haggard over wine.
And slowly to my song they fade, with large eyes fixed
on mine!
0 Lyre! O Lyre!
Thy strings of golden fire
Fade to their fading, and the hand is chill
That touches thee; the once glad brow grows gray —
1 faint, I wither, while that conclave still
Dies wearily away!
[90]