HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

xliv
^'nttoiiuction.
popular poetry. 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.
" 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