ur hearts more strongly; his
songs are all music and feeling--they are like birds that not only
enchant us with their delicious notes, but nestle against us with their
soft breasts, and make us feel the agitated beating of their hearts. He
indicates a whole sad history in a single quatrain; there is not an image
in it, not a thought; but it is beautiful, simple, and perfect as a "big
round tear"--it is pure feeling, breathed in pure music:

"Anfangs wollt' ich fast verzagen
Und ich glaubt' ich trug es nie,
Und ich hab' es doch getragen--
Aber fragt mich nur nicht, wie." {134}

He excels equally in the more imaginative expression of feeling: he
represents it by a brief image, like a finely cut cameo; he expands it
into a mysterious dream, or dramatizes it in a little story, half ballad,
half idyl; and in all these forms his art is so perfect that we never
have a sense of artificiality or of unsuccessful effort; but all seems to
have developed itself by the same beautiful necessity that brings forth
vine-leaves and grapes and the natural curls of childhood. Of Heine's
humorous poetry, "Deutschland" is the most charming specimen--charming,
especially, because its wit and humor grow out of a rich loam of thought.
"Atta Troll" is more original, more various, more fantastic; but it is
too great a strain on the imagination to be a general favorite. We have
said that feeling is the element in which Heine's poetic genius
habitually floats; but he can occasionally soar to a higher region, and
impart deep significance to picturesque symbolism; he can flash a sublime
thought over the past and into the future; he can pour forth a lofty
strain of hope or indignation. Few could forget, after once hearing
them, the stanzas at the close of "Deutschland," in which he warns the
King of Prussia not to incur the irredeemable hell which the injured poet
can create for him--the _singing flames_ of a Dante's _terza rima_!

"Kennst du die Holle des Dante nicht,
Die schrecklichen Terzetten?
Wen da der Dichter hineingesperrt
Den kann kein Gott mehr retten.

"Kein Gott, kein Heiland, erlost ihn je
Aus diesen singenden Flammen!
Nimm dich in Acht, das wir dich nicht
Zu solcher Holle verdammen." {135}

As a prosaist, Heine is, in one point of view, even more distinguished
than as a poet. The German language easily lends itself to all the
purposes of poetry; like the ladies of the Middle Ag