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Littell's Living Age/Volume 137/Issue 1773/A Fireside Piece

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Original German title: Altes Kamin-Stück (1851).

109942Littell's Living Age, Volume 137, Issue 1773 — A Fireside PieceTheodore MartinHeinrich Heine

A FIRESIDE PIECE.

Outside the blast is making riot,
And through the darkness the snowflakes fall;
Here in my little room all is quiet,
Warm and dry, and so snug withal.

Musing I sit on my cushioned settle,
Facing the firelight's fitful shine;
Sings on the hob the simmering kettle,
Songs that seem echoes of "auld lang syne."

And close beside me the cat sits purring,
Warming her paws at the cheery gleam;
The flames keep flitting, and flickering, and whirring, -
My mind is lapped in a realm of dream.

Many long, long forgotten summers
Rise up, wraith-like, before my view,
Some in the brightness of masking mummers,
Some with their splendors bedimmed in hue.

Lovely, serene-faced women sweetly
Meanings divine in a glance convey;
Revellers, mingling among them fleetly,
Caper and laugh, and are madly gay.

Marble gods in the distance tower;
Near them, dream-like in beauty rare,
Is a fairy grove that has burst in flower,
And sheds perfume on the moonlit air.

Castles full many of wizard story
Totter along with their crests awry;
Knights behind them, in full-plumed glory,
With troops of their squires come riding by.

'Tis gone! The beautiful dream is over!
Away like a phantom the pageant draws!
Oh dear! The kettle is boiling over,
And pussy is yelling with scalded paws.

Blackwood's Magazine.


 This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.

Original:

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse

Translation:

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse