by
Heinrich Seidel (1842 - 1906)
Der Storch
Language: German (Deutsch)
Available translation(s): ENG
Der Storch kommt aus Egypterland,
Weil Frühlingslüfte riefen.
Er steht auf seinem alten Stand
Und klappert Hieroglyphen.
Da nun Poeten überall
Der Vogelsprache kundig,
So auch den ganzen Klapperschwall
Des braven Storchs verstund ich.
Da er zurück von Pyramid',
Von Nil und Krokodil kam,
So war's ein gar vergnüglich Lied
Vom wunderschönen Nilschlamm.
Ein jeder Storch am Nilschlamm hängt
Und klapprig ihm zu Muth wird,
Wenn er an seinen Nilschlamm denkt,
Und wie's dem Storch da gut wird!
Da krabbelt's hin, da krabbelt's her,
Und allerwegen hüpft es! -
Man geht umher und schmauset sehr,
So glatt hernieder schlüpft es.
Auch weiß der Störche Tradition
Aus grauer Zeit zu sagen:
Die wundervolle Märe von
Egyptens sieben Plagen.
Die Frösche millionenweis'!
Das war ein Morden schmausend! -
O Zeit, du aller Zeiten Preis,
Du schwandest manch Jahrtausend!
Doch ward erzählt von Ahn zu Ahn
Die Sage so vorzüglich -
Jetzt denkt auch dieser Storch daran
Und klappert so vergnüglich.
Text Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Gary Bachlund) , "The stork", rhymed paraphrase, copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [
Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2010-02-03
Line count: 32
Word count: 155
The stork
Language: English  after the German (Deutsch)
The Stork hails from Egyptian lands,
As springtime breezes rouse him.
As he always has done, he stork-ly stands
And puzzles his hieroglyph's pseudonym.
Poets everywhere study the matter
Of the stork-rich language of birds,
Thus all of the torrential chatter
Of the storks I understand as words.
They echo out from the pyramids,
From the delta and crocodile,
With such a pleasurable stork-sung song
Rising from the mud-luscious Nile.
On those banks each stork would trudge,
And seem to teeter and totter,
As they ponder on the Egyptian sludge
And the weather that's hot, and then hotter!
Frogs crawl hither and thither in the mud,
While above a stork stick-like hobbles,
Through that frog-filled menu and the Nile's flood
The stork finds a meal that he gobbles.
Traditions of the stork are what enables
Us to recall amphibian forbearers:
Those wonderful plague-filled fables
Of Egyptian slaves and frog-raining terrors.
Frogs by the millions croaked that rain
That fell as was prophesied!
Time, great time, recalls the pain
Fading little, of that amphibian genocide.
Now from generation to generation next
We speak of this biblical matter,
And rightly place the stork in this context
With his pleasurable, stork-stark chatter.
Text Authorship:
Based on:
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [
Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2010-02-03
Line count: 32
Word count: 199