translated from the German of Heinrich Heine, 1797–1856
In my breast I’ve seen expire
every worldly vain desire,
even, among things dead in there,
hatred of evil, likewise any care
for my or others’ hour of need—
only Death lives in me indeed.
The curtain falls, the play is done,
and my dear German public as one
saunters yawning in homeward throngs.
The good folk, enjoying laughs and songs
aren’t such fools, I have to allow,
supping and boozing and making a row—
It’s true, that speech of the noble hero’s
long ago in the book Homeros:
the lot of the meanest live Philistine
in Stuttgart-on-Neckar is happier than mine,
I, son of Peleus, dead champ whose shade is
prince of shadows in gloomy Hades.