ARTICLE x. VERSE TRANSLATIONS FROM MODERN GERMAN POETRY. BY THE REVEREND JAMES LINDSAY, D.D. IT was no less a man than the late Mr. Gladstone who wrote, that "the whole of German literature may be said to lie between the years embraced by the life of Goethe." A strange judgment! How much it overlooks, including Heine and the noble host of modern lyrical poets of Germany! And poetry has no purer form of being, than when it is lyrical. Head and chief of that brilliant host stands Heinrich Heine. For brevity, wit, pathos, subjectivity, brilliance, and nameless charm, Heine is absolutely without a peer. Latest in time of the Romantic poets of Germany, he is first in rank. The Romantic School was, he tells us, "nothing else than the re-awakening of the poetry of the Middle Ages, as it had been manifested in song, in painting and sculpture, in art and life. But this poetry sprang directly from Christianity; it was a passion-flower that had its roots in the blood of Christ." Intensely selfconscious was Heine-self-exhibitive to the last degreeamid his poignant griefs. But yet he was not without love that linked him to humanity, even when he was most cynical and scornful. This love he enshrined in his poetry in ways so lyrically pure as to excel the works of Byronic art. "So ever on I went for love, and ever, And still for love, yet Love approached me never." Heine's diction is simplicity itself; his expression precision itself; his melody perfection itself; he has a fondness for strong antitheses and sharp transitions. The weird and the melancholic are often found in him, and, as might be expected, a vein of German idealism is sometimes present. But in Heine there is passion, too, at times without any proper lyrical place. The following are characteristic of Heine. The tiny poem, "Like a Flower Thou Art," may be thus rendered: "Ah, like a flower to me thou art- "For 'tis to me as though mine hands I pray that of God's love the bands May keep thee pure and fair and staid." The same simplicity and subjectivity, and the like individuality, mark Heine's little poem, "Thou Lovely Fisher Maid": Other "Thou lovely fisher maid, Thy craft draw here to land; And talk we, hand in hand. "Lay on my heart thine head, Thy trust as free from dread "My heart is like the sea, Hath storm and ebb and flood, And many pearls there be In its fair deeps-wide-strowed." poems by Heine exhibit his power of portraiture, and of graphically giving a story in the fewest words. But we forbear to quote, for others must be spoken of who are less known than Heine. Heine has much to be forgiven him. But we, in judging him, have also much to remember. Foolish, passionate, irreverent, lacking in wisdom and truly normal development, he certainly was, but not even these things need blind us to the beauties of his poet ry. The same Heine it was who, when he took to discoursing on "Religion and Philosophy," could speak so exquisitely of the Bible as to say, "He that has lost his God can find Him again in this Book, and towards him who has never known Him it wafts the breath of the Divine Word." He died "believing in one sole God." Of recent German lyrical poets, none has been more popular than Emmanuel Geibel, Germany's greatest lyrical poet since Heine. Geibel's elevation of thought and sentiment are as conspicuous as the grace and harmony of his poems. One can hardly agree with the somewhat inap. preciative estimate of Lichtenberger, who seems to find it necessary to deny them religious utility and poetic wealth, in order to magnify Heine. But the beauty and perfection of Heine's poetry have no need that injustice be done to others. Surely such a 'Prayer' as that of Geibel, of which in its Ghasel form I subjoin a rendering, does not lack in spiritual character, or poetic power, or daring theistic sentiment: "Lord, whom in depth of heart I bear, be Thou with me! Thou Fort of grace in peace and plague, be When shine of summer sun the cheek of Man doth brown, As when with roses fenc'd in youth, be Preserve me, Well of Joy! lest I should And if I of myself despair, be Thou with me! Thy Spirit to me give, that pure my And that no word may e'er accuse, be Thy blessing be as Vine-dew! Self can But that I may the highest dare, be Thou with me! O Thou, my Consolation, Strength, and Sunlight free, On to the end of life's brief day, be Thou with me!" The truth is, Geibel can on occasion be as heart-moving as Heine, as perfect in poetic form, while spotlessly free of the sarcastic and frivolous mockeries which so often mar the brilliant work of Heine. This on "Remorse" is also Geibel's, and has a touching power of its own:— "Dark was the night, and hot the air, To rest I did in vain repair, My spirit sad and sadder grew: For days of old before me passed- In one long train they swiftly flew And from their flight wailed thus at last: "Thy spring thou hadst, and didst but grieve, The heart which for true love was given So now thy soul with sorrow riven "Thine anxious prayer now rends the air- The peaceful rest thou else hadst known, Poured flood of tears I could not stem." It is the merit of Geibel to have stood for spiritual ideals in the midst of a skeptical generation, and to have voiced human aspirations after the Divine in forms both lovely and pure. One more instance from Geibel must suffice; it is a rendering of his poem on "Sorrow as God's Messenger": "Ah! Sorrow is God's messenger: holy words of solemn measure "But if e'er, in heavenly vesture, that same angel shall have fled us, Swift and dazzling then the glory which its lustrous head will shed us. "Thro' the veil will then break forth the sheen which silver wings do carry, And the soul, with solemn awe, will learn what Guest did with it tarry." It cannot be pretended that, in such renderings, we have carried over the force, power, and point of the originals, but at least we have given some idea of the quality of their lyrical poetry. Geibel was, it may be added, an excellent verse translator of English, French, Greek, Latin, and Spanish poets. That German Apollo, Heine, excelled— and it was a developing excellence-in the depth and completeness with which his lyrical poetry seized and voiced the realities of experience. Our hearts leap up to find their feelings expressed in Heine very much as they do in the case of Burns, and far more than they do in the lyrics of Shelley. For the exquisite beauty of Shelley's lyrics is not shot through with the element of reality. Real enough, no doubt, his lyrical materials were to Shelley himself, but they are unsubstantial to us, and do not hold men to the end like the best of the incomparable Burns and the inimitable Heine. An infinite help to Heine it was that he would perpetuate the work of those mighty liberators of intellect, Luther and Lessing, and that he saw in the Romantic movement "a wholesome reaction" against "the horrible and colossal materialism that had grown up, and had overshadowed all spiritual glory." Like the essential poet he was, Heine had no real sympathy with a Nil admirari philosophy. Geibel has augmented his own poetic influence by linking a national impulse to the fine melody of his strains. But it is the spiritual side of Geibel's poetry which has lent it transfiguring power and celestial beauty, even when viewed side by side with the ethereal loveliness of Heine's poetry. On lower and more human ground, who will be long content with what may be called |