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the tea

Heinrich Heine

Heinrich Heine was born in Düsseldorf, Germany in either 1797 or 1799. In 1831 he took exile in France, where he often struggled financially despite irregular patronage from a millionaire uncle. With freedom of speech he developed an international reputation for the lyricism, wordplay, irony, and excoriating satire of his poems, and was called the last of the Romantics. In 1841 he married Crescence Eugénie Mirat (“Mathilde”), who cared for him during eight years of paralysis; he wrote from bed until his death in 1856.

 

The Tea

english translation

The Tea

original German poem

“Sie saßen und tranken am Teetisch”

Sie saßen und tranken am Teetisch,
Und sprachen von Liebe viel.
Die Herren waren ästhetisch,
Die Damen von zartem Gefühl.

Die Liebe muß sein platonisch,
Der dürre Hofrat sprach.
Die Hofrätin lächelt ironisch,
Und dennoch seufzet sie: Ach!

Der Domherr öffnet den Mund weit:
Die Liebe sei nicht zu roh,
Sie schadet sonst der Gesundheit.
Das Fräulein lispelt: Wie so?

Die Gräfin spricht wehmütig:
Die Liebe ist eine Passion!
Und präsentieret gütig
Die Tasse dem Herrn Baron.

Am Tische war noch ein Plätzchen;
Mein Liebchen, da hast du gefehlt.
Du hättest so hübsch, mein Schätzchen,
Von deiner Liebe erzählt.

 

Terese Coe

Terese Coe’s poems and translations have appeared in Able Muse, Alaska Quarterly Review, Cincinnati Review, the Hopkins Review, Metamorphoses, New American Writing, Poetry, Threepenny Review, Agenda, Crannog, Cyphers, the Moth, Poetry Review, the TLS, and the Stinging Fly, among many other international journals. Her poem “More” was heli-dropped across London as part of the 2012 London Olympics Rain of Poems, and her latest collection, Shot Silk, was listed for the 2017 Poet’s Prize.

 

 

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