Heinrich Heine
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heinewas a German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Liederby composers such as Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert. Heine's later verse and prose are distinguished by their satirical wit and irony. He is considered part of the Young Germany movement. His radical political views led to many of his works being banned by German authorities. Heine spent...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth13 December 1797
CountryGermany
Jews who long have drifted from the faith of their fathers... are stirred in their inmost parts when the old, familiar Passover sounds chance to fall upon their ears.
Good Luck is a giddy maid, Fickle and restless as a fawn; She smooths your hair; and then the jade Kisses you quickly, and is gone.
The spring's already at the gate With looks my care beguiling; The country round appeareth straight A flower-garden smiling.
The eyes of spring, so azure, Are peeping from the ground; They are the darling violets, That I in nosegays bound.
The artist is the child in the popular fable, every one of whose tears was a pearl.
So we keep asking, over and over,Until a handful of earthStops our mouths -But is that an answer?
The same fact that Boccaccio offers in support of religion might be adduced in behalf of a republic: "It exists in spite of its ministers.
Freedom is a new religion, the religion of our time.
Literary history is the great morgue where all seek the dead ones whom they love, or to whom they are related.
At first I was almost about to despair, I thought I never could bear it — but I did I bear it. The question remains: how?
God will forgive me the foolish remarks I have made about Him just as I will forgive my opponents the foolish things they have written about me, even though they are spiritually as inferior to me as I to thee, O God!
Immortality—dazzling idea! who first imagined thee! Was it some jolly burgher of Nuremburg, who with night-cap on his head, and white clay pipe in mouth, sat on some pleasant summer evening before his door, and reflected in all his comfort, that it would be right pleasant, if, with unextinguishable pipe, and endless breath, he could thus vegetate onwards for a blessed eternity? Or was it a lover, who in the arms of his loved one, thought the immortality-thought, and that because he could think and feel naught beside!—Love! Immortality!
I have smelt all the aromas there are in the fragrant kitchen they call Earth; and what we can enjoy in this life, I surely have enjoyed just like a lord!
But a day must come when the fire of youth will be quenched in my veins, when winter will dwell in my heart, when his snow flakes will whiten my locks, and his mists will dim my eyes. Then my friends will lie in their lonely grave, and I alone will remain like a solitary stalk forgotten by the reaper.