Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79. | | | | Frankfort | | Goethe’s Monument at Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1821 | | Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) |
| | Translated by E. A. Bowring
GOOD German men, maids, matrons, pray give ear! | |
| Collect subscribers with the utmost speed, | |
| The worthy folk of Frankfort have agreed | |
| To build a monument to Goethe here. | |
| “At fair time,” think they, “this will make it clear | 5 |
| To foreign traders that we ’re of his breed, | |
| That ’t was our soil that nurtured such fair seed, | |
| And then in trade they ’ll trust us without fear.” | |
| O, touch the bard’s bright wreath of laurel never, | |
| And keep your money in your pockets too; | 10 |
| ’T is Goethe’s, his own monument to raise. | |
| He dwelt amongst you in his infant days, | |
| But half a world now severs him from you, | |
| Whom a stream doth from Sachsenhausen sever! | | | | |
|
|
