HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

Bard of Democracy
conscious, when composing the Shropshire Lad,
were Shakespeare's songs, Scottish Border ballads,
and Heine. Humbert Wolfe, reversing the temptation
to call Housman a disciple of Heine, called
the latter the A. E. Housman of Germany and
the Book of Songs the German equivalent of the
Shropshire Lad: "It is this simplicity of sorrow,
this naivete that can by its mere self-consciousness
styhze emotions formless to the point of imbecility
that unites these two poets spiritually . . . Each
poet takes matchless advantage of the idiosyncrasies
of his own speech. Housman rings his monosyllables
Hke a muffled hammer beating in the fatal
coffin-nail. Heine sways his dissyllables like the
slow bell swinging. More cannot be done with language."
^'^
Robert Bridges apostrophized Emily Bronte in
verses that, he frankly confessed, were modelled
after Heine's Du hast Diamante?!. The poem opened
with the stanza:
Thou hadst all Passion's splendor.
Thou hadst abounding store
Of heaven's eternal jewels,
Beloved; what would'st thou more?
Bridges, poet-laureate of the early twentieth century,
was delighted since his earhest days by the
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