Chapter XV: Heine and Goethe

It has already been mentioned that Heine, when a student in Bonn, conceived an enthusiastic admiration for the founder of the Romantic school. A. W. Schlegel's personality was as attractive to him as his teaching. In Schlegel, Heine admired the man who had guided German poetry from artificiality to truth. He was dazzled, too, by the fashionable professor's aristocratic bearing, his knowledge of the world, his acquaintance with the good society and famous people of the day.

He was also touched by the kindly interest which Schlegel showed in himself and his first literary efforts. It was to Schlegel that he was indebted for his early initiation into the secrets of metrical art, and for something more valuable still, confidence in his own powers and his future.

In Heine's first prose article, that on Romanticism, written in 1820, he expresses his gratitude and makes his Romantic confession of faith in the same breath. He protests against the idea of Romanticism being "a mixture of Spanish enamel, Scotch mists, and Italian jingle"; no, Romantic poetry ought not to be obscure and vague; its images may be as plastic in contour as those of classic poetry. "Hence it is," he writes, "that our two greatest Romanticists, Goethe and A. W. Schlegel, are at the same time our greatest plastic artists." And he names Goethe's _Faust_ and Schlegel's _Rome_ in the same breath, as models of plastic outline, concluding pathetically: "O, that those who love to call themselves Schlegelians would lay this to heart!" This passage should be noted by those whose only knowledge of Heine's connection with Schlegel is derived from the low attack on the latter's private life in _Die Romantische Schule_. It was to A. W. Schlegel, moreover, that Heine addressed his three first sonnets. In the earliest he thanks him for his personal kindness, and declares his own great indebtedness to him; in the second he extols him for the service which he has rendered to German poetry by banishing that caricature in hoop and patches which in his day figured as the Muse; in the third he praises him for his introduction of English, Spanish, early German, Italian, and Indian poetry into modern German literature. The tone is enthusiastic:

"Der schlimmste Wurm: des Zweifels Dolchgedanken,
Das schlimmste Gift: an eigner Kraft verzagen,
Das wollt' mir fast des Lebens Mark zernagen;
Ich war ein Reis, dem seine Stützen sanken.

Da mochtest du das arme Reis beklagen,
An deinem güt'gen Wort lässt du es ranken,
Und dir, mein hoher Meister, soll ich's danken,
Wird einst das schwache Reislein Blüthen tragen," &c.[1]

[1] The most dangerous worm--doubt, with its dagger tooth; the most deadly poison--distrust of one's own powers, were eating away my life; I was a sapling bereft of its supports.

Thou hadst pity on the poor sapling, thou gavest it the support of encouraging word; if ever the weak sapling blossoms, thine, great master, be the praise.

It is under this first Romantic influence that Heine writes his earliest, purely Romantic poems in archaistic style, verses like:

"Die du bist so schön und rein,
Wunnevolles Magedein,
Deinem Dienste ganz allein
Möcht' ich wohl mein Leben weihn.

Deine süssen Aeugelein
Glänzen mild wie Mondenschein,
Helle Rosenlichter streun
Deine rothen Wängelein."

This reminds us forcibly of Tieck's earliest verses, those introduced into his tales. In the one little poem from which these stanzas are taken, we come upon Wunne, Magedein, Aeugelein, Wängelein, Mündchen, weiland, a whole string of diminutives and archaisms.

Heine's next model was a genial, true poet, who died in 1827, at the early age of thirty-one--Wilhelm Müller, the author of the _Müllerlieder_, particularly well known from Schubert's musical setting, and of the _Griechenlieder_, which were equally admired in their day. A son of Wilhelm Müller's is the well-known German-English philologist, Max Müller, whose novel, _Deutsche Liebe_, the story of the tender love of a young German savant for a sickly, bedridden princess, is said to be based on events in his father's life.

On the 7th of June 1826, Heine writes to Müller: "I am magnanimous enough to confess frankly that the resemblance of my little Intermezzo metre [the one most frequently employed by Heine] to your usual metre is not purely accidental; the secret of its cadence was in all probability learned from your verses." He goes on to explain that he had early felt the influence of the German popular ballad and song, and that at Bonn, Schlegel had initiated him into the art of verses; "but," he adds, "it is in your verse that I seem for the first time to have found the clear ring, the true simplicity, which I have always aimed at. How clear, how simple your poems are, and they are one and all popular poems. In mine only the form is popular; the ideas are those of conventional society."

It was from Müller that Heine first learned how to evolve new popular forms out of the old. To behold as it were with our own eyes the birth and growth of Heine's style, we only need to set certain of his verses alongside of Müller's.

Müller writes:

"Wir sassen so traulich beisammen
Im kühlen Erlendach,
Wir schauten so traulich zusammen
Hinab in den rieselnden Bach."

And Heine:

"Wir sassen am Fischerhause
Und schauten nach der See,
Die Abendnebel kamen
Und stiegen in die Höh'."

How closely this last stanza resembles such a stanza of Müller's as:

"Die Abendnebel sinken
Hernieder kalt und schwer,
Und Todesengel schweben
In ihren Dampf umher."[2]

[2] Wilhelm Müller: _Gedichte_, i. p. 26; "Thränenregen," p. 194; "Dasselbe noch einmal."

These are the introductory lines of a long, beautiful poem called _Hirtenbiwouak in der römischen Campagna_, the most important part of which is the shepherd's song of longing for his sweetheart. How much Heine must have learned from such a verse as that which describes the young girl:

"Darunter sitzt ein Mädchen,
Die Spindel in der Hand,
Und spinnt und sinnt und schauet
Herab in's eb'ne Land."

We do not find Wilhelm Müller marring the impression of his idyll by any sudden revulsion of mood; there is nothing of the devil in him; the gentle andante is maintained to the end of the piece. But it is not in this that the principal difference between his style and Heine's lies; for Heine at times retains his tranquil mood throughout a whole poem. The essential difference is the extraordinary condensation of Heine's style, as compared with Müller's. He gives in one verse, at most two, what the other requires ten to express.

The novelty in his lyric style is its unparalleled condensation. The poems are all epitomes. They present us with a spiced, fragrant essence of passion, experience, bitterness, mockery, wit, emotion, and fancy; an essence of poetry and prose in combination. Psychologists talk of a condensation of thought;[3] in comparison with the pupil's thought, the master's is condensed. In the history of all mechanism, increasing condensation is to be observed. Once there were only church clocks; now people carry clocks in their pockets. That is to say, the mechanism which once required for its wheels and springs the space provided by a church clock, now finds room enough in a watch. In like manner, many an old tragedy does not contain more thoughts or more feeling than a Heine poem of two or three verses.

[3] Lazarus: _Das Leben der Seele_, 2nd edition, p. 229.

Heine's short stanza has, then, two advantages over Wilhelm Müllers--more passion, and much greater condensation of style.

In his favourite short iambic metre, Heine is influenced by Wilhelm Müller, in his trochees he resembles another Romantic, far more Romantic poet, Clemens Brentano. In Heine's _Romancero_ there are some curious correspondences with Brentano's _Romanzen vom Rosenkranze_ ("Romances of the Rosary"). These latter were written before _Romancero_, but as they were not published till 1853, Heine cannot possibly have been influenced by them.

In the second of the _Rosary Romances_ we read of the hero, Cosmo, that:

"Aus dem Wasserspiegel mahnt
Ihn des Alters ernste Bote:
Du wirst bald die Schuld bezahlen,
Spricht des Hauptes Silberlocke."[4]

[4] The solemn messengers of age, the white locks of the man who gazes at him from the water-mirror, cry: Soon thou must pay thy debt.

In Heine's posthumous poem _Bimini_, one of the divisions begins:

"Einsam auf dem Strand von Cuba,
Vor dem stillen Wasserspiegel,
Steht ein Mensch und er betrachtet
In der Flut sein Konterfei.

Eben nicht mit sonderlichem
Wohlgefallen scheint der Greis
In dem Wasser zu betrachten
Sein bekümmert Spiegelbildniss."[5]

[5]

On the shore of Cuba's island
Stands an old man solitary,
Gazing at his own reflection
In the tranquil water-mirror.

Not with any special pleasure
Does the sad and aged man
See beneath him in the water
His own image, sorrowful.

Metre, situation, idea are identical in the two passages.

There is also a certain resemblance between the tale of a mystery-book in the Ninth Romance of the Rosary and the story of the beautiful casket in Heine's poem of _Jehuda ben Halevy_.[6] Only that Brentano's story of the passing of the mystery-book from hand to hand, through many ages, merely opens up to us a Romantic wonder-world, whereas Heine's tale of the wanderings of the casket is at the same time a jest at the vicissitudes of life: the pearls first belong to Smerdis, who gives them to Atossa, then to the great Alexander, who gives them to Thais, then in course of time to Cleopatra, to a Moorish sultan, to the regalia of Castille, and to the Baroness Solomon Rothschild, in a compliment to whom the life-history of the casket terminates.

[6] _Cf_. Eduard Grisebach; _Die deutsche Litteratur_, p. 254, &c.; where, however, a definite influence is insisted on, regardless of Heine's priority.

It is quite certain that Heine is indebted to Clemens Brentano for the subject of what in Germany is the best known and most sung of all his songs, the song of _Lorelei_, "Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten."

As far back as 1802 Brentano had published, in his _Godwi,_ a ballad entitled "Lorelei." It is not the story of a siren, but of a young girl of Bacharach on the Rhine, who was so beautiful that all men fell in love with her. She was accused of witchcraft. But the bishop, who ought to have condemned her to be burned, fell in love with her himself. She desires to die, for the one man she loves will have nothing to say to her and has gone away; so, on her way to the convent to which the bishop is sending her, she climbs a high cliff, Lurelei (Ley means slate-rock), and in despairing longing for her beloved, throws herself into the Rhine.

This ballad suggested to a writer called Nikolaus Vogt the fabrication of a Rhine legend, which he published in 1811, passing it off as an old one. In it Lorelei, on her way to the convent, sees the man of her heart sail past her on the Rhine, and throws herself from the cliff in grief at having failed to win him. Three of her adorers follow her to a watery grave. Hence a rock in that neighbourhood is known by the name of the Dreiritterstein (Rock of the Three Knights). The last incident was perhaps suggested by the ending of Brentano's poem:

"Wer hat dies' Lied gesungen?
Ein Schiffer auf dem Rhein.
Und immer hat geklungen
Vom hohen Felsenstein:
Lore Lay!
Lore Lay!
Lore Lay!
Als wären es unser Drei."[7]

[7] Who was it sang this song? A boatman on the Rhine. And still we heard the cry, from the high cliff overhead: "Lore Lay! Lore Lay! Lore Lay!" Me-seemed that we were three.

From this fabricated legend a certain Count Loeben, in 1821, took the theme for a poem, _Lorelei_,[8] in which the young girl who drowns herself is transformed into a mermaid, whose singing lures into the depths those who are sailing past:

"Da wo der Mondschein blitzet
Um's hohe Felsgestein,
Das Zauberfräulein sitzet
Und schauet auf den Rhein.

Es schauet herüber, hinüber,
Es schauet hinab, hinauf,
Die Schifflein ziehen vorüber,
Lieb' Knabe, sieh nicht auf!

Sie singt dir hold am Ohre,
Sie blickt dich thöricht an,
Sie ist die schöne Lore,
Sie hat dir's angethan," &c.[9]

[8] A. Strodtmann: H. Heine's _Leben und Werke_, 2nd edition, i. 696.

[9] Where the moonlight glitters on the lofty cliff, there the magic-maiden sits, and gazes on the Rhine. She looks across the stream, looks up the stream and down; softly the boats glide past-look not on her, O youth! She sings so sweetly in your ear, she looks at you bewitchingly; she is the lovely Lore, and in her spells you're caught.

Now take Heine's world-famed poem, first a students' song, then a popular song, melting and thrilling with the tender harmony of melody and words. The direct imitation is unmistakable. The theme is the same, the metre is the same, even some of the rhymes are the same: "blitzet--sitzet;" instead of "an--gethan, Kahn--gethan." But what a difference! Feeling has been added. First the personal starting-point, the inexplicable melancholy of the narrator and his inability to banish the old legend from his thoughts, then the instantaneous, clear, definite picture of the landscape:

"Die Luft ist kühl, und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fliesst der Rhein,
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
Im Abendsonnenschein.

Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar,
Ihr gold'nes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar."[10]

[10]

The cool air darkens, and listen,
How softly flows the Rhine!
The mountain peaks still glisten
Where the evening sunbeams shine.

The fairest maid sits dreaming
In radiant beauty there.
Her gold and her jewels are gleaming,
She combeth her golden hair.
(E. LAZARUS.)

And something more has been added--that element of dæmonic passion which the earlier manipulators of the theme were unable to communicate to it. Heine here represents an elemental luring power, akin to that delineated with simpler means and more powerful effect by Goethe in _Der Fischer_. But Goethe, in conformity with his nature, describes a tranquil, enchanting ensnarement; Heine, in conformity with his, an instantaneous, irresistible, maddening bewitchment.

A still more profound insight into Heine's art, in the making, and into the manner in which his fancy deals with a theme, is perhaps to be gained by observing how he makes use of a subject which offers itself to him in prose.

In Henri Beyle's book, _De l'amour_, he evidently found the three following anecdotes, translated from the Arabic. 1. Sahid ben Agba one day asked an Arab: "Of what tribe art thou?" "Of that tribe," answered the Arabian, "in which men die when they love." "Then thou art of the tribe of Asra?" "Yea, verily, by the Lord of Kaaba!" "Whence comes it that ye love thus?" "Our women are beautiful, and our young men chaste." 2. A man once asked Arua ben Hezam of the tribe of Asra: "Is it true that ye love with a tenderness surpassing that of all other men?" "It is true," answered Arua. "Thirty young men of my tribe have I seen carried off by death, whose only sickness was that of love." 3. An Arab of the tribe Beni-Fazarat said one day to an Arab of the tribe Beni-Asra: "Ye think that to die of love is a sweet and noble death; whereas it is nought but weakness and foolishness." "Thou would'st not speak so," answered the other, "had'st thou seen the great dark, long-lashed eyes of our veiled women, seen their teeth gleam between their brown lips when they smile."

Here we have the origin of Heine's famous _Der Asra_: "Täglich ging die wunderschöne." He first paints the place for us--the garden with the fountain whose white waters flash; then he shows us the slave, standing there every day when the sultan's daughter comes to walk, paler every day; then he tells how the princess one evening closely questions the slave: "I would know thy name, thy race, thy family...":

"Und der Sklave sprach: 'ich heisse
Mohamet, ich bin aus Yemen
Und mein Stamm sind jene Asra,
Welche sterben, wenn sie lieben.'"[11]

[11]

Spake the youthful slave, "My name is
Mahomet, I come from Yemen;
And by birth I am an Asra,
One who dieth when he loves."
(E. LAZARUS.)

Heine, as we see, has disdained all explanations. We enjoy the marvellous conciseness of these monumental words, this power as it were of hewing out the speech in stone. But what, on closer investigation, is the spiritual substance of the poem? Not much more than a laconic combination of the words love and death. It is the same combination that is to be found in all Heine's youthful poems, in the shape of love and suffering, love and poison, love and suicide--in Alfred de Musset, too, there is the same stereotyped coupling of _l'amour_ and _la mort_.

Here, as in general with Heine, the expression is epigrammatic, therefore quite simple.

We have now sufficient material before us to give us a certain insight into the formation of Heine's poetic style. It will be interesting to study it finished and fully developed.

We may start from the last-mentioned poem with its epigrammatic point. It is characteristic of Heine that neither here nor elsewhere does he deeply concern himself with the true inwardness of a feeling; he only, as a rule, points and sharpens the expression of it. This is the case even with the feeling of love, which he has treated more frequently than any other. And it is characteristic of his want of the power to put himself in another's place, that it has only been possible for him to give expression to masculine love; he has never put a passionate utterance of feeling into the mouth of a woman.

Nothing would have been more impossible for Heine than to write such a poem as Goethe's famous:

"Freudvoll und leidvoll,
Gedankenvoll sein,
Langen und bangen
In schwebender Pein,
Himmelhoch jauchzend,
Zum Tode betrübt,
Glücklich allein
Ist die Seele die liebt."[12]

[12]

Gladness
And sadness
And pensiveness blending;
Yearning
And burning
In torment ne'er ending;
Sad unto death,
Proudly soaring above,
Happy alone
Is the soul that doth love.
(BOWRING)

For this is the living delineation of a woman's heart, this is the very inner life of love, its pulsation, its oscillation between bliss and woe. The epigrammatic quality of Heine's style alone would make such an unfolding of the emotional life impossible. And there is the same concentration when he narrates an event. It is a condensation without parallel in poetry; he produces his effect by making the briefest possible statement or suggestion. As an example of this take the lines:

"Es war ein alter König,
Sein Herz war schwer, sein Haupt war grau;
Der arme, alte König
Er nahm eine junge Frau.

Es war ein schöner Page,
Blond war sein Haupt, leicht war sein Sinn,
Er trug die seid'ne Schleppe
Der jungen Königin."[13]

[13]

There was an aged monarch,
His heart was sad, his head was grey;
This foolish, fond old monarch
A young wife took one day.

There was a handsome page, too,
Fair was his hair and light his mien;
The silken train he carried
Of the beautiful young queen.

Observe the telling effect of the inversion: "Blond war sein Haupt;" it is as if the verse began to rejoice and dance. Then comes the end:

"Kennst du das alte Liedchen?
Es klingt so süss, es klingt so trüb;
Sie mussten beide sterben,
Sie hatten sich viel zu lieb."[14]

[14]

Dost know the ancient ballad?
It sounds so sweet, it sounds so sad:
Both of them had to perish
Too much love to each other they had.

This is admirable. But we are not told the story; we only suspect it as we suspect the story of the slave and the sultan's daughter. And here again love is coupled with death.

A certain emptiness in Heine's conception of love strikes us here again. This love has no real substance, no spiritual significance. It was not till shortly before he lay down upon his death-bed that Heine began to describe a love that has real inward substance. The love of the _Buch der Lieder_ is for the most part wrath excited by coldness or faithlessness, an unfruitful thing, that awakens no sympathy. The later of the love-poems are frequently sensual or frivolous, and the more exaggerated the expression, the less are we affected by the value of the feeling:

"Mein Herz ist wie die Sonne,
So flammend anzuseh'n.
Und in ein Meer von Liebe
Versinkt es gross und schön."[15]

15:

My heart is like the sun, dear,
Yon kindled flame above;
And sinks in large-orbed beauty
Within a sea of love.
(E. LAZARUS.)

There is too much self-observation and too much boastfulness in this youthful rodomontade. And it is the same with:

"Ich hab' dich geliebet und liebe dich noch,
Und fiele die Welt zusammen,
Aus ihren Trummern stiegen doch
Hervor meiner Liebe Flammen."[16]

16:

I have loved thee long, and I love thee now,
And, though the world should perish,
O'er its dying embers still would glow
The flames of the love I cherish.
(LELAND)

Admitting that this is probably so expressed for the sake of artistic effect, we must also admit that the style is a good, perfectly modern style. We can see it all with the mind's eye. The heart sinks like the sun into a sea. From the ruins of the world rise the flames of love. And still more powerful and much more picturesque is the scene in which the name of Agnes is written on the vault of heaven. What is wanting is substance in the feeling. Think, for the sake of comparison, of those profoundly human lines of Goethe's:

"Kanntest jeden Zug in meinem Wesen,
Spähtest, wo die reinste Nerve klingt,
Konntest mich mit einem Blicke lesen,
Den so schwer ein sterblich Aug' durchdringt."[17]

[17] Thou knewest every impulse of my nature, thine eye detected where the nerve thrilled keenest, thou couldst read me at a glance, me, so impenetrable to mortal eye.

--or of the following, which complete the impression:

"Tropftest Mässigung dem heissen Blute,
Richtetest den wilden, wirren Lauf,
Und in deinen Engelsarmen ruhte
Die zerstörte Brust sich wieder auf."[18]

[18] The hot blood by thee was tempered, the wild, aimless course by thee directed; and in thine angel arms the torn breast found rest and healing.

This is the expression of the healthiest, fullest, mutual sympathy, of love's gratitude, of perfect understanding. For such feeling Heine did not find expression until, with the shadow of death upon him, he loved _la Mouche_, the guardian angel of his death-bed. Until then it is never the healthy, tranquillising, happy element in love that he concerns himself with. It is in another domain that he is master. The modern poet, he reproduces passionate desire with a Correggio-like blending of colours and tones that is more effective than Goethe's antique limpidity. With Goethe desire is Greek or Italian. Think, for instance, of the poem of the orange:

"Ich trete zu dem Baume
Und sage: Pomeranze!
Du reife Pomeranze;
Du süsse Pomeranze!
Ich schüttle, fühl', ich schüttle,
O fall in meinen Schoos!"[19]

[19]

I take my stand beneath the tree,
And cry: O orange!
O orange ripe!
O orange sweet!
Feel, feel how I shake thy tree!
O fall into my lap

Then compare the feeling, the glow, the fragrance, the exuberance of such a poem of desire as Heine's wonderful: _Die Lotosblume ängstigt sich vor der Sonne Pracht_ ("The lotus-flower is fearful of the sun's resplendent beam").

It is very characteristic of the two poets that (as has already been noted), whenever the representation of love-longing glides into a delineation of foreign lands, Goethe prefers to paint Italy, Heine Hindostan. In Mignon's song of longing, without a superlative or a diminutive, with a power like that of a God, Goethe summons before our eyes the picture of the classic land where the citrons bloom. There is a power in it all, a force in each distinguishing trait, that Heine does not attain to. But compare this with the bewitching sweetness of Heine's _Auf Flügeln des Gesanges_ ("Oh, I would bear thee, my love, my bride, afar on the wings of song"), the dreamy longing, the charm and the mystery of the perspective that opens out to us:

"Es hüpfen herbei und lauschen
Die frommen, klugen Gazelln,
Und in der Ferne rauschen
Des heiligen Stromes Welln."[20]

[20]

Gazelles come bounding from the brake,
And pause, and look shyly round;
And the waves of the sacred river make
A far-off slumb'rous sound.
(Sir THEODORE MARTIN)

This is an immortal stanza. Goethe, even when he gives the reins to longing, is always, like his own goldsmith of Ephesus, the great, wise heathen, who makes images of the gods; in Heine's visionary brain there was that particle of divine frenzy without which it had been impossible for the Düsseldorf merchant's son to understand and reproduce the fatalistic, self-effacing dreaminess of ancient India.

Heine's peculiarities of style stand out even more sharply against the background of Goethe's, when we compare the way in which the two give expression to what is not exactly desire, but the pure longing of love.

Think of the following lines, which Goethe puts into Mignon's mouth:

"Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, weiss was ich leide,
Allein und abgetrennt von aller Freude,
Seh' ich an's Firmament nach jener Seite.
Ach, der mich liebt und kennt, ist in der Weite.--
Es schwindelt mir, es brennt mein Eingeweide.
Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, weiss was ich leide."[21]

21:

My grief no mortals know, except the yearning!
Alone, a prey to woe, all pleasure spurning,
Up towards the sky I throw a gaze discerning.
He who my love doth know seems ne'er returning;
With strange and fiery glow _my heart is burning_[*]
My grief no mortals know, except the yearning.
(BOWRING)

[*]In the original, _my bowels are burning_.

This is the master in the fulness of his power. Much art has been expended in the representation of the wearing monotony of longing--the five doubly rhyming lines, the languishing metre--interrupted by the audacious, realistic expression: "Es schwindelt mir, es brennt mein Eingeweide." Now compare with this, one of Heine's most perfect expressions of pure love-longing, and we shall see what the plastic fancy and the perfected laconicism of style which we traced in course of development have succeeded in producing for time and eternity:

"Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam
Im Norden auf kahler Höh'.
Ihn schläfert: mit weisser Decke
Umhüllen ihn Eis und Schnee.

Er träumt von einer Palme,
Die fern im Morgenland
Einsam und schweigend trauert
Auf brennender Felsenwand."[22]

[22]

A pine-tree stands alone on
A bare bleak northern height;
The ice and snow they swathe it
As it sleeps there, all in white.

'Tis dreaming of a palm-tree,
In a far-off Eastern land,
That mourns, alone and silent,
On a ledge of burning sand.
(Sir THEODORE MARTIN.)

This is hardly rhymed. The only real rhyme is the very commonplace _Land_ and _Wand_. The pine dreams in the snow, the palm grieves dumbly in the burning heat--that is all. It is not seen, it is fancied or invented, hence it cannot be painted (though I did once see a painting of it in a German exhibition, an idiotically absurd, double picture); but it is, nevertheless, an unforgettable, an immortal poem. And the reason is that the symbol is so marvellously effective in its simplicity--these two clear outlines instinct with feeling, which express the impossibility of overcoming the obstacle which prevents the union of two who really belong to each other.

If Goethe's strength lies in the expression of healthy feelings, comparatively simple and uncomplicated, Heine's lies in the expression of complex modern feeling, of feelings whose unsound state is the result of painful experiences. Goethe could never have written the following lines, with their jarring contrasts and enigmatical meaning:

"Wenn ich in deine Augen seh'
So schwindet all mein Leid und Weh:
. . . . . . . . . . .
Doch wenn du sprichst: ich liebe dich!
So muss ich weinen bitterlich."[23]

[23]

Whene'er I look into thine eyes,
Then every fear that haunts me flies:
. . . . . . . . . . .
But when thou sayest: "I love thee;"
Then must I weep, and bitterly.
(Sir THEODORE MARTIN)

Why must he weep? I have heard the naïve answer: Because she is lying. Alas! it is not such a simple matter as that. He has heard these words from other lips, lips which have now ceased to utter words of love; he knows how long such a passion as a rule lasts, and the sound of her voice startles him out of his forgetfulness--he doubts the durability of her feeling or the durability of his own. It is very interesting to note the way in which Heine had wrestled with these words. Originally the last line was: "Dann wein' ich still und bitterlich." Then the word "bitterlich" was altered to "freudiglich," which changed the original tenor of the poem, and finally the line received its present form.[24]

[24] H. Hüffer: _Aus dem Leben Heinrich Heines,_ p. 153.

Heine was not happy enough and not great enough to attain to reconciliation with existence. It was not possible, apart from all else, that the man who was so long an exile, so long sick to death, should look upon life with the same eyes as the man who was thoroughly sound and healthy, in affluent circumstances, honoured by the great majority, the friend of his sovereign. Hence the expressions of revolt, of bitterness, and of cynicism so frequently to be found in Heine are exceedingly rare in Goethe. Goethe, as a rule, puts them into the mouth of his Mephistopheles. Heine, who was destitute of the dramatic faculty, is himself responsible for every outburst, because he always speaks in his own name. Goethe's bitterest utterances, moreover, are not contained in his works. It is only in the Paralipomena to _Faust_, for instance, that we find this passage:

"Nach kurzem Lärm legt Fama sich zur Ruh,
Vergessen wird der Held so wie der Lotterbube,
Der grösste König schliesst die Augen zu,
Und jeder Hund bepisst gleich seine Grube."[25]

[25]

Fame's short-liv'd turmoil o'er, she sleeps,
Hero and waif, oblivion's their doom;
The greatest king, life o'er, his eyes doth close,
And straightway every dog defiles his tomb.

Heine dwells upon the ideas which Goethe only calls up to banish again. Goethe, too, can be blasphemous. He wrote that poem which is so frequently quoted, so seldom understood: _Wer nie sein Brod mit Thränen ass_ ("He that with tears did never eat his bread"). It is a bitter, passionate appeal against the ordering of the world. But its bitterness is a bitterness that is choked with tears, not the wild and desperate bitterness of Heine's splendid _Fragen_ ("Questions") or the poem _Lass die heiligen Parabeln_ ("Holy parable discarding"), in which occur the lines:

"Warum schleppt sich blutend, elend,
Unter Kreuzlast der Gerechte,
Während glücklich als ein Sieger
Trabt auf hohem Ross der Schlechte?

Also fragen wir beständig,
Bis man uns mit einer Handvoll
Erde endlich stopft die Mäuler,
Aber ist das eine Antwort?"[26]

[26]

Wherefore bends the Just One, bleeding
'Neath the cross's weight laborious,
While upon his steed the Wicked
Rides all-proudly and victorious?

Thus are we for ever asking,
Till at length our mouths securely
With a clod of earth are fastened--
That is not an answer, surely?
(BOWRING)

The expression is here, as usual with Heine, on a lower plane, more terrestrial, more boldly outspoken, yet by no means unworthy of the subject.

Outbursts of satiety and weariness of life are not infrequent with him. We do not need to search long among his poems to find expressions of the mood of having done for good and all with principle, with endeavour. Nothing of this kind is to be found in Goethe. His _Vanitas vanitatum_, the song _Ich hab' meine Sache auf Nichts gestellt_ ("My trust in nothing now is placed") has, very significantly, become a convivial drinking song. In other words, there is no real, bitter earnest about Goethe's desperation; therefore it soon changes into jovial recklessness. Goethe has not Heine's overpowering feeling of the misery of life, and in so far he is really less Christian.

If it is instructive to compare the two poets' lyric expression of fatalistic indifference, it is equally so to compare their expression of the feeling of aspiration, of manly resolve. In this case we may take the song _Feiger Gedanken_ ("Cowardly Thoughts") from _Claudine von Villa Bella_, as characteristic of Goethe; it might serve as a motto for his conduct throughout life. One can hardly imagine a more vigorous expression of manly determination than that of the lines: "Allen Gewalten zum Trutz sich erhalten," &c. (A bold front shown, to powers of earth and heaven).

Compare with this Heine's poem, _An die Jungen_ ("To the Young"). The impetuous rush of the rhythm and the picturesque quadruple rhyme would alone suffice to make this a splendid, fascinating composition. The first verse, with its allusion to the golden apples which Hippomenes dropped in front of Atalanta, is a whole poem in itself:

"Lass dich nicht kirren, lass dich nicht wirren
Durch goldne Aepfel in deinem Lauf.
Die Schwerter klirren, die Pfeile schwirren,
Doch halten sie nicht den Helden auf."[27]

[27] Heed not the confusion, resist the illusion Of golden apples that lie in thy way! The swords are clashing, the arrows are flashing, But they cannot long the hero delay. (BOWRING.)

From the picture and example of the hero, who will not be stopped in his career, we pass to that of Alexander. What is wanted is determination and boldness:

"Ein kühnes Beginnen ist halbes Gewinnen,
Ein Alexander erbeutet die Welt,
Kein langes Besinnen! Die Königinnen
Erwarten schon kniend den Sieger im Zelt.

Wir wagen und werben! besteigen als Erben
Des alten Darius' Bett und Thron.
O süsses Verderben! o blühender Sterben!
Berauschter Triumphtod zu Babylon!"[28]

28:

A daring beginning is half way to winning,
An Alexander once conquered the earth!
Restrain each soft feeling! the queens are all kneeling
In the tent, to reward thy victorious worth.

Surmounting each burden, we win as our guerdon
The bed of Darius of old, and his crown;
O deadly seduction! O blissful destruction!
To die drunk with triumph in Babylon town.
(BOWRING.)

Upon victory follows the homage of the queens, then sweet perdition, seductive ruin, death in the intoxication of triumph--what Sardanapalian sentiment in this appeal to youth, this exhortation to relentless determination! The fight here is for honour, and for women as the spoil of battle, not that struggle for the combatant's own individual freedom, of which Goethe writes so simply:

"Nimmer sich beugen,
Kräftig sich zeigen,
Rufet die Arme
Der Götter herbei."[29]

29:

Nevermore yield thee!
Show life has steeled thee!
Thus call the arms of
The Gods to thine aid.

Goethe's feeling is purer and fuller, the music of his language is simpler; with Heine the melody is, as it were, gorgeously orchestrated. In Goethe's case there is nothing for the eye, not a single picture. It is characteristic that his idea is the grander, Heine's the more modern, more complex, just as Heine's metrical expression is more sensuously insinuating, produced by an art which devotes more attention to detail.

Now take a picturesque, descriptive subject--the Three Kings of the East, as they are called to mind at the Feast of the Epiphany. It is treated in a broad, lively, popular, genuinely naïve manner in Goethe's _Epiphanias:_ "Die heil'gen drei König' mit ihrem Stern" (The Three Kings of the East with their Star). The three kings, the white, the brown, and the black, are described as they appeared when they went about, dressed up, from house to house in the country; and the poem ends:

"Die heil'gen drei König' sind wohlgesinnt,
Sie suchen die Mutter und das Kind,
Der Joseph fromm sitzt auch dabei,
Der Ochs und Esel liegen auf Streu."[30]

[30]

The Three Kings of the East with reverence lowly
Seek out the babe and mother holy,
Good Joseph's there too, and close by
The ox and ass on the litter lie.

Heine does not view the legend in a more religious light than Goethe, but he settles his features into a more serious expression, speaks more concisely, draws with a sharper outline, obtains a totally different effect. Goethe rouses and cheers his readers by his broad and merry artlessness; Heine's words bore their way into men's minds and leave their sting there. He seems to aim at producing the same effect as that of an old Florentine painting:

"Die heil'gen drei König' aus Morgenland,
Sie frugen in jedem Städtchen:
Wo geht der Weg nach Bethlehem,
Ihr lieben Buben und Mädchen?

Die Jungen und Alten, sie wussten es nicht,
Die Könige zogen weiter,
Sie folgten einem goldenen Stern,
Der leuchtete lieblich und heiter.

Der Stern blieb steh'n über Josephs Haus,
Da sind sie hineingegangen,
Das Oechslein brüllte, das Kindlein schrie,
Die heil'gen drei Könige sangen."[31]

[31]

The three holy kings from the Eastern land
Inquired in every city:
Where is the road to Bethlehem,
Ye boys and maidens pretty?

The young and the old, they could not tell,
The kings went onward discreetly;
They followed the track of a golden star,
That sparkled brightly and sweetly.

The star stood still over Joseph's house
And they entered the dwelling lowly,
The oxen bellowed, the infant cried,
While sang the three kings holy.
(BOWRING.)

There is a certain amount of waggery in this. What a concert! But also, what painting! The fewest words possible--not a stroke, not a touch too much, and the most telling, prompt effect.

Let us now, in conclusion, think of one of those abstract figures which occur in all lyric poetry--more or less carefully wrought-out personifications of an idea such as peace, happiness, unhappiness--and in this domain also compare Heine with Goethe. Here again it will be observed that Goethe has the fuller note, Heine the firmer outline.

Goethe wrote these lines to peace:

"Der du von dem Himmel bist,
Alles Leid und Schmerzen stillest,
Den, der doppelt elend ist,
Doppelt mit Erquickung füllest,
Ach, ich bin des Treibens müde!
Was soll all der Schmerz, die Lust?
Süsser Friede!
Komm, ach komm in meine Brust!"[32]

32:

Child of heaven, that soothing calm
On every pain and sorrow pourest,
And a doubly healing balm
Find'st for him whose need is sorest,
Oh, I am of life aweary!
What availeth its unrest--
Pain that findeth no release,
Joy that at the best is dreary?
Gentle peace,
Come, oh come unto my breast!
(Sir THEODORE MARTIN.)

There is no picture here, no real personification. There is a crescendo movement through the first six lines, which culminates in the outburst: "Süsser Friede!"--though we could not feel quite certain that this outburst was coming.

Now take Heine's personifications of fortune and misfortune, as contained in the following verses:

"Das Glück ist eine leichte Dirne
Und weilt nicht gern am selben Ort,
Sie streicht das Haar dir von der Stirne
Und küsst dich rasch und flattert fort.

Frau Unglück hat im Gegentheile
Dich liebefest an's Herz gedrückt,
Sie sagt, sie habe keine Eile,
Setzt sich zu dir an's Bett und strickt."[33]

[33]

Oh, Joy, she is a lichtsome hizzy,
She winna bide wi' ye ava';
She strokes your broo an' maks ye dizzy
Wi' ae fond kiss, then flits awa'.

Dame Sorrow is a canty kimmer,
A fond embrace ye'll hae frae her;
She vows she's naewise thrang, the limmer,
Knits by your bed an' winna stir.
(W. A.)

Seldom have two ideas been transformed into two living forms with so few strokes; and there is nothing much finer in all modern myth-creation than the last two lines, between which are to be read the record of profound and terrible experience.

Heine, as we have seen, makes his earliest appearance in the Romantic school, and learns his trade from A. W. Schlegel, who imparts to him his own correct taste. In the earliest period of his development he is addicted to Romantic ghost stories and Romantic archaisms. Then, in the matter of metre, he begins to study and imitate Wilhelm Müller; in his most famous poem he borrows from Clemens Brentano. He soon forms his own style, the distinguishing feature of which is extreme condensation of thought, feeling, and imagery. Heine makes everything present and living, introduces even into tranquil themes a nervous, at times dæmonic, passion, not infrequently exaggerates until he becomes grotesque, occasionally exchanges the light of day for the glaring brightness of electric light--a kind of un-naturalness which is nevertheless to be found in nature. His most effective poetic quality is pregnant brevity.

By reason of the blend of wit and imagination in his nature, he is inclined to produce his effects by contrasts, to seek for striking disharmonies and incongruities; he has a special fancy for the effect produced by letting a commonplace, vulgar reality imperceptibly make way for a poetic vision, or allowing such a vision to fade and evaporate and give place to all too familiar reality.

His style is essentially modern--everything graphic, everything perspicuous. What is it that constitutes a great writer? The possession of the power to call forth mental visions or moods, visions by means of moods or moods by means of visions. It was especially the latter faculty that Heine cultivated in himself; he never fails in the matter of clear outline and picturesque effect.

At his zenith he can no longer be compared with his teachers and contemporaries. To gauge the power and versatility of his style it was necessary to compare it with the greatest style of the age--with Goethe's. In the process he often, as we have seen, comes far short, but it not so very seldom happens that he establishes his right to almost equal admiration. It is, however, enough for him that it is possible, and now and again necessary, to compare him with Goethe.

A style is the expression of a personality and a weapon in the warfare of literature. Goethe's style, with all its greatness, is not sufficiently complex to grapple with modern ideas. But Heine's, that weapon which in its best days was as finely tempered as those old Spanish blades which could be bent like osiers, but which no armour could snap, was better suited than any other to cope with modern life in its hardness and ugliness, its charm, its restlessness, and its wealth of glaring contrasts. It also possessed in the highest degree the power of working upon the nerves of modern readers, who have more inclination for spiced dishes and heating beverages than for plain food and pure wine.