Heinrich Heine

“ Notwithstanding their inequalities, the Reisebilder remain one of the surest props of Heine's fame. So clear and perfect an utterance is sufficiently rare in all languages; but it becomes little short of a miracle when, as in this case, the medium of its transmission is German prose, a vehicle so bulky and unwieldy that no one before Heine had dared to enlist it in the service of airy phantasy, delicate humor and sparkling wit. ”

“ Because I love thee madly,
Thou lovely son of man."
[Pg 73]
XV.
When I before thy dwelling,
In early morning pace,
How gladly in the window
I see thy gentle face.
Thy brown-black eyes in pity,
Mine own eyes, wistful scan,
"Who art thou, and what lack'st thou,
Thou strange, unhappy man?"
I am a German poet,
Of goodly German fame,
When their best names are spoken,
Mine own they are sure to name.
And what I lack, sweet maiden,
Most Germans lack the same.
When men name sharpest sorrows,
Mine own they are sure to name. ”

“ It is unnecessary to dwell upon these years of darkness, in which Heine, shriveled to the proportions of a child, languished upon his "mattress-grave" in Paris. His patient resignation, his indomitable will, his sweetness and gayety of temper, and his unimpaired vigor and fertility of intellect, are too fresh in the memory of many living witnesses, and have been too frequently and recently described to make it needful here to enlarge upon them. In the crucial hour he proved no recreant to the convictions for which he had battled and bled during a lifetime. ”

“ But a note of such tremendous power as Heine had struck in this romance, required for its prolonged sustention a singleness of purpose and an exaltation of belief in its efficacy and truth, which he no longer possessed after his renunciation of Judaism. He was no longer at one with himself, for no sooner was the irrevocable step taken than it was bitterly repented, not as a recantation of his principles—for as such, no one who follows the development of his mind can regard it,—but as an unworthy concession to tyrannic injustice. ”

“ II.
Over all the quiet sea-shore
Shadowing falls the hour of Hesper;
Through the clouds the moon is breaking,
And I hear the billows whisper.
"Can that man who wanders yonder
Be a lover or a dunce?
For he seems so sad and merry,
Sad and merry both at once."
But the laughing moon looks downward,
And she speaks, for she doth know it:
"Yes, he is both fool and lover,
And, to cap it all, a poet!"
III.
Behold! ”

“ Most dearly belovèd,—
Thou who art so weak in body and mind,
And so strong in faith!
Thou who so singly honorest the Trinity,
Who kissest daily the pug and the reins and the paws
Of thy lofty protectress,
And hastenest with canting devotion
To the Aulic councilor and to the councilor of justice,
And at last to the council of the Realm
In the pious city,
Where sand and faith flourish,
And the long-suffering waters of the sacred Spree
Purify souls and dilute tea. ”

“ "I am no longer a divine biped," he wrote. "I am no longer the freest German after Goethe, as Ruge named me in healthier days. I am no longer the great hero No. 2, who was compared with the grape-crowned Dionysius, whilst my colleague No. 1 enjoyed the title of a Grand Ducal Wlimarian Jupiter. I am no longer a joyous, somewhat corpulent Hellenist, laughing cheerfully down upon the melancholy Nazarenes. I am now a poor fatally-ill Jew, an emaciated picture of woe, an unhappy man." ”

“ From the gods, and bestowed it upon man.
And tortured by eagles chained to the rock,
Olympus-high he flung defiance, flung defiance and groaned,
Till we heard it in the depths of the sea,
And came to him with the song of consolation.
Oh fool, thou fool, thou boasting fool!
Thou, however, art more impotent still.
'Twere more seemly that thou shouldst honor the gods,
And patiently bear the burden of misery,
And patiently bear it, long, so long,
Till Atlas himself would lose patience,
And cast from his shoulders the ponderous world
Into eternal night. ”

“ Dumb are the trumpets, cymbals, drums and shawms to-night,
The angel shapes engirdled with the sword,
About the royal tent keep watch and ward,
Six thousand to the left, six thousand to the right.
They guard the king from evil dreams, from death.
Behold! a frown across his brow they view.
Then all at once, like glimmering flames steel-blue,
Twelve thousand brandished swords leap from the sheath. ”

“ We need only turn to the volumes themselves to guess how bitter an experience must have filled the gap between the buoyant stream of sunny inspiration that ripples through the Harz-Reise, and the fierce spirit of vindictive malice which prompted Heine, six years later, to conclude his third and last volume with his unseemly diatribe against Count Platen. ”

“ The city of Berlin.
[Pg 116]
Behold, the pavements of each street
Now wider, broader, grown!
And to an oyster, fresh and clear,
Transformed is every stone.
A shower of sweet lemonade
Pours down like dew divine.
And through the very gutters flows
The mellowest Rhine wine.
Oh, how the Berlinese rejoice!
They lush o'er such good fare. ”

“ Dismiss me not, e'en if my thirst
Quenched with that sweet draught be!
Bear with me for a season yet,
That shall suffice for me.
Canst thou no longer be my love,
Then be to me a friend;
For friendship only just begins
When love is at an end. ”

“ Calm below it lies the poet
With his fair face bare and white,
Still with yearning ever turning
Azure eyes towards heaven's light.
As he saileth sadly waileth
Some bereaven undine-bride.
O'er the springing waves outringing,
Hark! a dirge floats far and wide.
[Pg 158]
THE ASRA.
Daily the fair Sultan's daughter
Wanders to and fro at twilight
By the margin of the fountain,
Where the waters white are rippling.
Daily the young slave at twilight
Stands beside the fountain's margin,
Where the waters white are rippling,
Daily grows he pale and paler. ”

“ But what subtle eloquence lurks in that restrained cry of horror and indignation which never breaks forth, and yet which we feel through every line, gathering itself up like thunder on the horizon for a terrific outbreak at the end! ”

“ We talked like grown folks sagely,
And sat there oft and long,
Complaining how all had altered,
Since the days when we were young.
How love and faith and friendship
Had vanished, the world was bare;
How dear were tea and coffee,
And money had grown so rare!
Those childish games are over,
All things roll on with youth,—
Money, the world, and the seasons,
And faith and love and truth.
[Pg 95]
XLI.
My heart is heavy ”

“ But to this wretched by-way was relegated that other beauty-enamored, artist-soul, Heine, when he dared set foot in the imperial Free Town. Here must he be locked in like a wild beast, with his miserable brethren every Sunday afternoon. ”

“ The doors of the most delightful, intellectual society of Germany were opened to the handsome young poet, who is described in a contemporary sketch as "beardless, blonde and pale, without any prominent feature in his face, but of so peculiar a stamp that he attracted the attention at once, and was not readily forgotten." ”

“ Penetrate my heart,
When I now gaze upon you yonder,
Deserted gods!
Dead night-wandering shadows,
Weak as mists which the wind scares away.
And when I recall how dastardly and visionary
Are the gods who have supplanted you,
The new, reigning, dolorous gods,
Mischief-plotters in the sheep's clothing of humility,
Oh then a more sullen rancor possesses me,
And I fain would shatter the new Temples,
[Pg 213] And battle for you, ye ancient gods,—
For you and your good ambrosial cause. ”

“ Elise von Hohenhausen, who gave him the name of the German Byron, met with many contradictions. This recognition, however, assured her an imperishable gratitude on Heine's part."
Not only his social and intellectual faculties found abundant stimulus in this bracing atmosphere, but his moral convictions were directed and strengthened by the philosophy and personal influence of Hegel, and his sympathies with his own race were aroused to enthusiastic [Pg xiii] activity by the intelligent Jews who were at that time laboring in Berlin for the advancement of their oppressed brethren. ”

“ Simonism, then at its culminating point in Paris. Its central idea of the rehabilitation of the flesh, and the sacredness of labor, found an enthusiastic champion in him who had so long denounced the impracticable spiritualism of Christianity. He, the logical clear-headed sceptic in all matters pertaining to existing systems and creeds, seems possessed with the credulity of a child in regard to every scheme of human regeneration, or shall we call it the exaltation of the Jew, for whom the Messiah has not yet arrived, but is none the less confidently and hourly expected? ”

“ The literary censorship had long mutilated his prose writings, besides materially diminishing [Pg xviii] his legitimate income by prohibiting the sale of many of his works. He now began to fear that his personal liberty would be restricted as summarily as his literary activity; and in May, 1831, he took up his residence in Paris. He perfected himself in the French language, and by his brilliant essays on French art, German philosophy, and the Romantic School, soon acquired the reputation of one of the best prose writers of France, and the "wittiest Frenchman since Voltaire." ”

“ During the period of his earnest labors for Judaism, he had buried himself with fervid zeal in the lore of his race, and had conceived the idea of a prose-legend, the Rabbi of Bacharach, illustrating the persecutions of his people during the middle ages. Accounts vary as to the fate of this work; some affirm that the manuscript was destroyed in a fire at Hamburg, and others that the three chapters which the world possesses are all that were ever completed. Heine, one of the most subjective of poets, treats this theme in a purely objective manner. ”

“ There is no other period in the poet's career on which it is so pleasant to linger as on the two years of his residence in the Prussian capital. In his first prose work, the Letters from Berlin, published in the Rhenish-Westphalian Indicator, he has painted a vivid picture of the life and gayety of the city during its most brilliant season. ”

“ And if the restrictions were a little less barbarous in other parts of Germany, yet how shall we characterize a national policy which closed to such a man as Heine every career that could give free play to his genius, and offered him the choice between money changing and medicine?
It was not till he had exhausted every means of endeavoring to secure a remission of the humiliating decree that he consented to the public act of apostasy, and was baptized in the summer of 1825 in the Lutheran [Pg xv] parsonage of Heiligenstadt with the name of Johann Christian Heinrich. ”

“ His principal companions were Jewish children, and he was brought up with a rigid adherence to the Hebrew faith. Thus in the very seed-time of his mental development were simultaneously sown the germs of that Gallic liveliness and mobility which pre-eminently distinguish him among German authors, and also of his ineradicable sympathy with things Jewish, and his inveterate antagonism to the principles and results of Christianity.
As the medical profession was in those days the only one open to Jews in Germany, the boy Heine was destined for a commercial career ”

“ This uneducated, simple-hearted, affectionate child-wife inspired in the poet, weary of intellectual strife, a love as tender and constant as it had been sudden and passionate. A variety of circumstances having combined to reduce Heine to extreme want, he had recourse to a step which has been very severely censured. He applied for and received from the French government a pension from the fund set aside for "all those who by their zeal [Pg xx] for the cause of the Revolution had more or less compromised themselves at home or abroad." ”

“ Our life and the world have too fragment-like grown;
To the German Professor I'll hie me anon
Who sets in straight order all things overhurled.
He will draw up a sensible system, I think,
With his nightcap and nightgown he'll stop every chink
In this tumble-down edifice known as the world. ”

“ He does not allow himself a word of comment, much less of condemnation concerning the outrages he depicts. He paints the scene as an artist, not as the passionate fellow-sufferer and avenger that he is. ”

“ He whom all asperities fatigue, whom all discords trouble, let such a one neither move nor think—let him go to bed and shut his eyes."
Only in his last poems, which were not to be published till after his death, has Heine given free vent to the bitterness of his anguish. During the long sleepless night when he lay writhing with pain or exhausted by previous paroxysms, his mind, preternaturally clear and vigorous, conceived the glowing fantasies of the Romancero, or the Job-like lamentations of the Lazarus poems. ”

“ His delicate consideration prompted him to spare his venerable mother all knowledge of his illness. He wrote [Pg xxiii] to her every month in his customary cheerful way; and, in sending her the latest volumes of his poetry, he caused a separate copy always to be printed, from which all allusions to his malady were expunged. "For that matter," he said, "that any son could be as wretched and miserable as I, no mother would believe."
Alas! if he had known how much more eloquent and noble a refutation his life would afford than his mistaken passionate response to the imputations of his enemies! ”

“ E'en as in my bosom floweth
Not a drop of blood that's Moorish,
Neither of foul Jewish current."
"Heed not Moors nor Jews, belovèd,"
Spake the knight with fond endearments.
Then towards a grove of myrtles
Leads he the Alcalde's daughter.
[Pg 13]
And with love's slight, subtle meshes,
He hath trapped her and entangled;
Brief their words, but long their kisses,
For their hearts are overflowing.
What a melting bridal carol,
Sings the nightingale, the pure one!
How the fire-flies in the grasses
Trip their sparkling, torch-light dances!
In the grove the silence deepens ”