Heinrich Heine, Es erklingen alle Bäume (Arborii-nfloriți răsună)

(source: Herzbaum)
no copyright infringement intended

An old friend of mine (a classmate from the high school years) sent me yesterday an eMail with a splendid little poem, leaving to me the pleasure to guess the author. The way the poem was organizing its words and images, its joyous communion with the world of little birds from the grove, all that sent me immediately to St O Iosif - or a Romanian rendering, by St O Iosif, from Heine.

Arborii-nfloriți răsună,

Cântă cuiburile-n slavă...

Cine-i oare capelmaistrul

În orchestra din dumbravă?

Pițigoiul care-ntr-una

Dă din cap cu-atâta fală?

Ori pedantul cuc ce-și strigă

Numele fără greșeală?

Este oare cocostârcul,

Care, tacticos la pasuri,

Calcă-nfipt pe lungi picioare,

În acest concert de glasuri?

Nu ! În inimă-mi trăiește

Cela ce conduce corul...

Tainic simt cum bate tactul,

Și socot că e amorul.

(wikisource)

Yes, it was a Romanian rendering from Heine, made, surely, by St O Iosif. I have to make here a confidence. When it comes to Romanian poets, I'm very old school, and the verses of Iosif (that could seem naive today) are always a source of enchantment for me.

Of course I wanted to find also the original verses. Not easy at all! I found the poem in many places throughout the Internet, all of them mentioning that it was a translation from Heine, however not giving the original title. With my German knowledge so far from perfect, I tried the Google Translate: Arborii-nfloriți răsună gave me Die blühende Bäume erklangen.

(source: Lanternhowwowpress)
no copyright infringement intended

I started to look for these words browsing on the Internet throughout Heine's verses, without any success, and I was about to give up when I realized that the original could have some other wording arrangement. So I tried Heine erklangen, and I found pretty soon Es erklingen alle Bäume! Heine, with his always elegant and playful mix of Romantic enchantment and ironic lucidity, building a whole little universe of little and bigger birds, to send us a subtle blink in the last verse.

Es erklingen alle Bäume,

Und es singen alle Nester –

Wer ist der Kapellenmeister

In dem grünen Waldorchester?

Ist es dort der graue Kiebitz,

Der beständig nickt so wichtig?

Oder der Pedant, der dorten

Immer kuckuckt, zeitmaßrichtig?

Ist es jener Storch, der ernsthaft,

Und als ob er dirigieret,

Mit dem langen Streckbein klappert,

Während alles musizieret?

Nein, in meinem eignen Herzen

Sitzt des Walds Kapellenmeister,

Und ich fühl, wie er den Takt schlägt,

Und ich glaube, Amor heißt er.

(Neuer Frühling VIII)

(video by Florian Friedrich)

I found then the poem also in English and French. Enjoy!

All the trees with joy are shouting,

All the birds are singing o'er us ---

Tell me, who can be the leader

In this green and forest chorus?

Can it be the grey old plover,

Wise nods evermore renewing?

Or yon pedant, who is ever

In such measured time coo-coo-ing?

Can it be yon stork, the grave one,

His director's airs betraying,

And his long leg rattling lodly,

Whilst the music's round him playing?

No, the forest concert's leader

In my own heart hath his staion,

All the while he's beating time there, ....

Amor is his appellation.

(The Poems of Heine, complete: Translated in the original Metres)

(source: Salamandre)
no copyright infringement intended

Tous les arbres résonnent,

On chante dans tous les nids --

Quel est le chef

De ce vert orchestre de la forêt ?

Est-ce là-bas le vanneau gris

Vaniteux qui hoche la tête constamment ?

Ou le pédant qui au-loin

Lance son coucou en mesure ?

Est-ce cette cigogne sérieuse,

Qui, comme si elle dirigeait

De sa longue patte tendue, claquète

Pendant que tous font de la musique ?

Non, c'est dans mon propre cœur

Que se tient le chef d'orchestre de la forêt,

Et je sens comme il bat la mesure,

Et je crois qu'il s'appelle Amour.

(The LiederNet Archive)

(Heinrich Heine)

(St O Iosif)