Die Nächte sind nicht für die Menge gemacht.
Von deinem Nachbar trennt dich die Nacht,
und du sollst ihn nicht suchen trotzdem.
Und machst du nachts deine Stube licht,
um Menschen zu schauen ins Angesicht,
so mußt du bedenken: wem.
Die Menschen sind furchtbar vom Licht entstellt,
das von ihren Gesichtern träuft,
und haben sie nachts sich zusammengesellt,
so schaust du eine wankende Welt
durcheinandergehäuft.
Auf ihren Stirnen hat gelber Schein
alle Gedanken verdrängt,
in ihren Blicken flackert der Wein,
an ihren Händen hängt
die schwere Gebärde, mit der sie sich
bei ihren Gesprächen verstehn;
und dabei sagen sie: Ich und Ich
und meinen: Irgendwen.
Nights were not made for the crowds, and they sever
You from your neighbor, so you shall never
Seek him, defiantly, at night.
But if you make your dark house light,
To look on strangers in your room,
You must reflect — on whom.
False lights that on men's faces play
Distort them gruesomely.
You look upon a disarray,
A world that seems to reel and sway,
A waving, glittering sea.
On their foreheads gleams a yellow shine
Where thoughts are chased away.
Their glances flicker mad from wine,
And to the words they say
Strange heavy gestures make reply,
That struggle in the buzzing room ;
And they say always, "I" and "I" ;
And mean — they know not whom.
Translated by Margarete Münsterberg Poetry(p. 263), by Harriet Monroe
Modern Poetry Assoc. (1915)
The 6th of April last
[1884] was a sorrowful day for all Germany, for on that day died Emanuel Geibel, the writer of popular ballads and songs. His name is
indeed a household word in the Fatherland, and babes begin to lisp in Geibel's ballads. The newspapers which have commented on his death
have scarcely understood the real nature of his literary position, and even German critics may readily mistake it. So great a chasm lies
between the Germany of his youth and the Germany of his old age, so vast a change has come over the national ideals, that Geibel, who was
much younger than Victor Hugo and younger than Lord Tennyson, seems to belong to a far more distant and unfamiliar generation than they....
fromFrank Leslie's Sunday Magazine
(Pg. 217) by C. F. Deems (1884)
