l soul, a sort of Gretchen, the child of some simple mining
people having their hut among the pines at the foot of the Hartz
Mountains, who reproaches him with not holding the old articles of the
Christian creed:--

"Ah, my child, while I was yet a little boy, while I yet sate upon my
mother's knee, I believed in God the Father, who rules up there in
Heaven, good and great;

"Who created the beautiful earth, and the beautiful men and women
thereon; who ordained for sun, moon, and stars their courses.

"When I got bigger, my child, I comprehended yet a great deal more than
this, and comprehended, and grew intelligent; and I believe on the Son
also;

"On the beloved Son, who loved us, and revealed love to us; and, for his
reward, as always happens, was crucified by the people.

"Now, when I am grown up, have read much, have travelled much, my heart
swells within me, and with my whole heart I believe on the Holy Ghost.

"The greatest miracles were of his working, and still greater miracles
doth he even now work; he burst in sunder the oppressor's stronghold,
and he burst in sunder the bondsman's yoke.

"He heals old death-wounds, and renews the old right; all mankind are
one race of noble equals before him.

"He chases away the evil clouds and the dark cobwebs of the brain, which
have spoilt love and joy for us, which day and night have loured on us.

"A thousand knights, well harnessed, has the Holy Ghost chosen out to
fulfil his will, and he has put courage into their souls.

"Their good swords flash, their bright banners wave; what, thou wouldst
give much, my child, to look upon such gallant knights?

"Well, on me, my child, look! kiss me, and look boldly upon me! one of
those knights of the Holy Ghost am I."[163]

One has only to turn over the pages of his _Romancero_,[164]--a
collection of poems written in the first years of his illness, with his
whole power and charm still in them, and not, like his latest poems of
all, painfully touched by the air of his _Matrazzen-gruft_, his
"mattress-grave,"--to see Heine's width of range; the most varied
figures succeed one another,--Rhampsinitus,[165] Edith with the Swan
Neck,[166] Charles the First, Marie Antoinette, King David, a heroine of
_Mabille_, Melisanda of Tripoli,[167] Richard Coeur de Lion, Pedro the
Cruel[168], Firdusi[169], Cortes, Dr. Doellinger[170];--but never does
Heine attempt to be _hubsch objectiv_, "beautifully objective," to
become in spirit