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Thus in
Heine's poetry, too, one perpetually blends the impression of French
modernism and clearness, with that of German sentiment and fulness; and
to give this blended impression is, as I have said, Heine's great
characteristic. To feel it, one must read him; he gives it in his form
as well as in his contents, and by translation I can only reproduce it
so far as his contents give it. But even the contents of many of his
poems are capable of giving a certain sense of it. Here, for instance,
is a poem in which he makes his profession of faith to an innocent
beautiful 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.


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