Patrick Augustine Sheehan
p.537The Leper Priest of Lüneburg
‘The Chronicle of Lüneburg records that during the year 1480, there were whistled and sung throughout Germany certain songs which, for sweetness and tenderness, surpassed any previously known in German lands. Young and old, and the women in particular, were bewitched by these ballads, which might be heard the livelong day. But these songs, so the chronicle goes on to say, were composed by a young priest who was afflicted with leprosy, and lived a forlorn solitary life, secluded from all the world... While all Germany sang and whistled his songs, he, a wretched outcast, in the desolation of his misery, sat sorrowful and alone.’ (Heine's Confessions; i.e. the Geständnisse of Heinrich Heine (1797–1857), written in the winter of 1854.)
1. The Student's Song
The chairman said. Through a night of smoke,
In thund'rous music, loud and long,
The German students' chorus broke,
High poised above the echoes dim,
In long and lambent measure smote
Their hearts: it was the students' hymn,
Of all that's noble, high and free—
Of all that's linked with that dear word,
The students' camaraderie.
Scarce breathed on the heaving air,
And tears from many an eye did start,
And cheeks would blush to find them there.
Love-angry, fiercely questioning: 'Who
Is this our poet? We will thrust
Our honours on him; loyal and true,
We'll toast him, whilst the spirits free—
Grim Meistersingers— stand around
This prince of German minstrelsy.'
His name: "but every student sprang
To's feet, with many a heavy blow
And fierce, hot word the chamber rang.
“Now, who's the poet?” 'Ah, to tell
Would be a treason.' “Yes, you shall!”
“The priest who tolls the leper bell!”
2. The Soldiers' Song
The Landwehr's sinuous lines unfold,
The dragon of the Vaterland,
With scales of steel and crests of gold.
Euphonium sweet and piccolo
High, harsh and shrill; the women stare,
As down the strasse the soldiers go.
Their brows, what clenches till they crush
The corded muscles—what spirit flits
O'er whitened lips, and cheeks aflush,
And steady while the sabres wave,
Makes them forget the wife's last kiss,
And dream of honour, or a grave?
The violets o'er their dust will blow,
And daisies star the grasses green,
Where tears of pride will often flow
'He loved me, but loved better still
That Fatherland for which he fought,—
Whose eagles crest each German hill.'
As down the strasse the soldiers go,
And bronzed and powdered feel the tide
Of triumph through their pulses flow,
And bayonets flash the ruddy glow,
And drums are beat and trumpets blare,
Euphonium sweet and piccolo,
That song of fire they know full well.
Stand forward, Minnesinger dear!
Alas! he tolls the leper bell!
3. The Lover's Song
That pictures as it swiftly floweth
The storied ruin, the hallowed shrine,
Haunted by shades of sage and poet,
Blossoms a maid, as sweet as they;
So fair in form, so pure of mind,
That lovers look, and pass away
Hath whispered to the nightingale,
And she had lent him tones of truth
Wherewith to tell his lover's tale.
Of a lost song that fell to earth,
A song so sweet that brook nor bird
For fleeting minds could give it birth.
Or haply find it, should he seek,
Shall pluck the cherries of her lips,
And brush the peach-bloom of her cheek
Love's pilgrim, with the guiding star
Of her sweet eyes, from town to town.
From Köln to the famed Weimar,
And then where turbid Arno rolls,
Which in the sad poet's eyes saw gleam
A lurid light from stricken souls.
He walked the twilight of a dell,
And dreamt that, as he sank to rest,
He heard the echo of a bell,
And sad and strong as wine or love.
And while the mystic measures beat
His brain, he thought of that fair dove,
And wafted by Love's pinions fleet,
He came, he sang, and from its shrine
Her heart fell fluttering at his feet.
4. The Sceptic
Some veiled divinity presides,
And swings his treasure-box, full rich,
But cares not how he shifts the slides,
Just as his rain and sunshine fall,
Knows not the face his grace uplifts,—
The hearts that wine and wealth enthrall.
This, solid pearl—this, liquid dew—
And here are songs, and here are woes—
And this for you, and that for you!
And rivets it in bars of death,
Bids it its mighty measures roll
Through crumbling flesh and fetid breath,—
With fleshless fingers on the keys
Of women's hearts that throb and ache,
And find in blood and tears such ease
The quivering chords of agony,
Whilst the sad hours mute measures pour
Of Time's eternal lullaby.
For sages: and those bloodless lips
Must drive the blood through nerves that shrink,
Till kindled to their finger-tips,
And jest at death, and shout with glee,
While the salt blood and salted fire
Proclaim a fatal victory.
At cerement cloths, sepulchral cell,
And children cry: 'Beware! beware!
The man who tolls the leper bell!'
'Tis chaos, hate, and cruel wrong;
High heaven is shamed for loathsome link
Of fleshless form and deathless song!
5. The Believer
Dimmed by a glimmering mist that shapes
To clouds the forms they would analyse,
The magic mystery escapes
The blundering of apprentice hand,
Till at a word the curtains fall,
And lo! serene, divinely-planned,
As when of old creation woke,
And saw its priest, and at his feet
Into a chorussed anthem broke.
With contrasts that our senses vex,
And visions oft the soul will haunt
And please us while they sore perplex.
You'll find, as on the level land,
Colours, and sights, and sounds are blent,
And mingled by a master hand.
He tips the spears of morn, and night
Rolls her dim columns down the glen,
Pierced by the lances of the light;
And coward night creeps up apace,
He pauses as he sinks to rest,
And flings his glory in her face.
Contrast and blend in sympathy,
As thunders in the wild storm-wrack
Swoon to the silence of the sea.
A poet-soul to angel-form;
For fair blooms sweetest perfume shed,
And beauteous lips the music-storm.
And kindled on the palm of God,
Blown by his breath, wherever fit,
The winged words He wafts abroad.
A vestal soul its watch doth keep;
And, as they spring in flame of prayer,
Sad eyes that wept forget to weep.
Is Heaven, and beneath is Hell:
And both are God's. Then where's the fault
In poet-priest and leper-bell?
P.A.S.
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Title statement
Title (uniform): The Leper Priest of Lüneburg
Author: Patrick Augustine Sheehan
Responsibility statement
Electronic edition compiled by: Benjamin Hazard
Funded by: School of History, University College, Cork and private donation
Edition statement
1. First draft
Extent: 2230 words
Publication statement
Publisher: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork
Address: College Road, Cork, Ireland — http://www.ucc.ie/celt
Date: 2014
Distributor: CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.
CELT document ID: E880000-006
Availability: Available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of academic research and teaching only.
Source description
Manuscript
- [Details to follow].
Canon Sheehan on the Internet
- http://www.canonsheehanremembered.com.
Edition
- Canon P.A. Sheehan, 'The Leper Priest of Lüneburg,' The Irish Monthly, 17/196 (October 1889) 537–542.
Literature
- Matthew Arnold, 'Heinrich Heine,' Cornhill Magazine, 8 (1862), 233–49.
- Herman Joseph Heuser, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile: the story of an Irish parish priest as told chiefly by himself in books, personal memoirs, and letters (New York 1917).
- Arthur Coussens, P.A. Sheehan, zijn leven en zijn werken (Brugge/Bruges 1923).
- Michael P. Linehan, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile: Priest, Novelist, Man of Letters (Dublin 1952).
- Charles Wright, 'Matthew Arnold on Heine as 'Continuator of Goethe',' Studies in Philology, 65 (1968), 693–701
- Heinrich Heine, Memoiren und Geständnisse (repr. Zürich 1997).
- Patrick Maume, The Long Gestation: Irish Nationalist Life, 1891–1918 (Dublin 1999).
- R. F. Cook (ed.), A Companion to the Works of Heinrich Heine: Studies in German Literature, Linguistics and Culture (London 2002).
- Paolo Chiarini and Walter Hinderer (eds.), Heinrich Heine: ein Wegbereiter der Moderne (Würzburg 2009).
- Patrick Maume, 'Sheehan, (Canon) Patrick Augustine,' in: Dictionary of Irish Biography (9 vols, Cambridge 2009), vol. 8, 882–884.
- James O'Brien (ed.), The Collected Letters of Canon Sheehan of Doneraile, 1883–1913 (Wells 2013).
- James O'Brien, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile 1852–1913: Outlines for a Literary Biography (Wells 2013). [Bibliographical references 205–211].
The edition used in the digital edition
‘The Leper Priest of Lüneburg’. In: The Irish Monthly: A Magazine of General Literature 17.196. Ed. by Matthew Russell SJ, pp. 537–542.
You can add this reference to your bibliographic database by copying or downloading the following:
@article{E880000-006,
title = {The Leper Priest of Lüneburg},
journal = {The Irish Monthly: A Magazine of General Literature},
editor = {Matthew Russell SJ},
address = {Dublin},
publisher = {Irish Jesuit Province},
date = {April 1889},
volume = {17},
number = {196},
pages = {537–542}
}
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Profile description
Creation: By Patrick Augustine Sheehan (1852–1913)
Date: 1898
Language usage
- The text is in English. (en)
- Some words are in German. (de)
- One word is in French. (fr)
Keywords: poetry; 19c; folklore; religious
Revision description
(Most recent first)
- 2019-06-05: Changes made to div0 type. (ed. Beatrix Färber)
- 2014-03-28: File parsed; minor modifications made to header; SGML and HTML files created. (ed. Beatrix Färber)
- 2014-03-27: Further structural mark-up completed; additions made to bibliography. (ed. Benjamin Hazard)
- 2014-03-12: Header created; structural mark-up added; file proofed. (ed. Benjamin Hazard)
- 2014-02-07: Text scanned. (file capture Benjamin Hazard)