Observations placeholder
Heine, Heinrich - The North Sea - The sunbeams were playing
Identifier
007261
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Poems Selected from Heinrich Heine – by Kate Freiligrath Kroeker
From the North Sea
The sunbeams were playing
Lightly over the billowy ocean
Far out at sea I saw shining the ship
That was to bear me homewards
But the right wind as yet was wanting
And tranquilly on the white sands I was sitting
By the lonely sea
And I read the song of Ulysses
That old, that ever youthful song
From whose ocean murmuring leaves
Rose joyfully
The breath of the gods
And the sunny spring of mankind
And the cloudless sky of fair Hellas
..........................................
But I lay at the edge of the vessel
And gazed with eye that was dreaming
Down into the clear crystal water
And gazed down deeper and deeper
Till far on the ground of the ocean
At first like mists of twilight
But soon more defined in colour and substance
Domes of churches appeared and steeples
And at length, clear as day, an entire town
Antiquated, Netherlandish
And thronged with people
Solemn men, draped in black mantles
With snowy neck ruffs and chains of honour