The Sun.
London, England, 1856-07-04 00:00:00

IN M, J ULY 4, 1856.

LITERATURE.

HEINRICH HEINE.

Heinrich Heine's Book of Songs. A Translation,
by John E. Wallis. Chapman and Hall.

Scarcely—thought we, on opening this volume—
scarcely three months have elapsed since that
melancholy 18th of February when poor Heinrich
Heine expired and lo ! already (purporting no
doubt to be his all but living and breathing effigy)
here are the mere dry bones of him—a caplet mor-
tuum, grinning at us from the top of a skeleton.
Empty sockets only where once shone forth upon
the world the radiant tearful eyes of the lyric philo-
sopher ! The eloquent tongue perished altogether
out of the jaws no longer covered by the mobile
lips breathing so often the language of passion in
the accents of pathos, and smiling perpetually upon
Grief like the beautiful old Shaksperean phantasy
of Patienee upon the Monument. Here again,
thought we, as we mused momentarily over the
title-page, here again, in lieu of the old familiar
face, the face beloved as familiar, hero again, as so
often before, we have of course but the grimliest
skull tricked out with a garland, a death's-bed
crowned with a wreath of blooming flowers, a
coronal of roses, and violets, and carnations ! An-
other German poet "done into English" posthum-
ously—another vapid_tranSlation—a decanted flask
of champagne—a butterfly with the gold and velvet
of its wings fingered " off" deplorably—a mere
handful of withered leaves gathered from under
branches clustered with blossoms in the spring time
and heavy with fruit in the autumn-season, dry
dead leaves now instead of either mellow fruit or
fragrant blossoms.
An egregious mistake all this—a flagrant example
of most erroneous anticipations !
The book is admirable, from first to last really
admirable. It is the voice of Heinrich Heine
himself we are listening to, the same voice
through another tongue, different in word
but not in thought, and most like, strangely
marvellously like in its variable and dulcifluous
modulations ! Henceforth, Wallis will be to us a
name of good omen. For already one artist of that
name, an artist of the brush has rejoiced our
eyes and touched our heart profoundly by his
exquisite representation of the Suicide of Chatter-
ton, one of the most remarkable pictures now
adorning the Royal Academy Exhibition. Another
artist of the same name, an artist of the pen (John
E. Wallis) has through the medium of this charm-
ing volume of translation conveyed to the ea-s of
lettered Englishmen unversed in the original, the
melody as well as the meaning of Heinrich Heine's
" Book of Songs," Birch der Liedcr—these
songs which are so to speak his pass-
ports to immortality the unfading bloom
the imperishable aroma of that supreme
efflorescence of his genius; the work whi,:h may be
regarded as the type of his powers, the great book
of the Reisebilder. Among all his various and volu-
minous writings—" Alnaansa," and " Radcliffe,"
and " Salon," and " Nene Gedeehte," and " Ro-
manzero," his " Romantische Schule," his " Ver-
mischt Schriften," and his " Gestandnisse"—this
one important production, his Keisebilder stands
forth conspicuously and characteristically. And
what the Beisebilder was considered in regard to
Heinrichlleke'slintellect, his Buch der Lieder may
be said to have been, when viewed in relation to the
Reisebilder. It was the " cream of the cream"—the
quintessence of the quintessence. A translation
of the poetry of the " Reisebilder" has already ap-
peared in the English language, a version penned
some time since by Mr. C. G. Leland, and re-
cently published at Philadelphia. With that
versima, however, we have nothing to do beyond
simply mentioning it thus, as a thing accomplished.
The translation for the most part having been
written so long ago, Mr. Wallis tells us in his Pre-
face, as 1840, rests altogether (in spite of the prior
issue of Mr. Leland's volume from the press of
Philadelphia), entirely and wholly upon a basis of
perfect independence. Produced originally, as we
have said, in 1840 (sixteen years ago), when our
translator was a student at a German university,
it was only revised and arranged at the suggestion
of a German friend (revised and arranged in Ger-
many) as recently as 1852, and four years more
were then allowed to elapse before the time actu-
ally came at last for its substantive publication.
Then poor Heine was no more—the eight dreadful
years during which he had been slowly dying in
Paris had come to an end—and there was a term
at length to his tears and to his laughter. Hap-
pily for those who can but read Heinrich Heine's
" Book of Songs" at second hand, through the
interpreting of a Translator, Mr. Wallis appears
to have set about his task from the outset with a
most accurate and lively sense of the great require-
ments of a translator—those of reconciling or ad-
justing as ingeniously as possible "the letter, the
spirit, and the melody of the original." How far
he has succeeded in this endeavour let the volume
before us answer, a goodly volume extending to
350 pages octavo, and embracing the whole of the
Famous " Songs" first collected into one "Book"
in 1827—the " Songs" lamenting the vain passion
of the poet for the blue-eyed, light-haired, pretty-
faced, ladye-love who, to sum up her qualities in
three words, was small, cold, and insignificant.
What poetry there is in these Songs ! W hat pas-
sion—what pathos—whatjoy—what anguish—what
tenderness ! How grotesque they are—how spon-
taneous ! They make us weep one moment ! and the
next shake ourside with merriment. Heinrich Heine
loves—Ah, how he loves ! The Book tells us. It
tell us by the pages blotted and blurred with his
tears—for he loves, as we have said, in vain ! It
tells us by the hand sometimes covering his face
suddenly to hide the grief, a grief too sacred for
revelation. Listen to him Here is one of his
" Songs" (viii.), but four lines in all—
" At first I fancied in despair
I ne'er could learn my fate to bear,
Yet I have learn'd to bear it now—
But, oh 1 you must not ask me how !"

Now by a quaint imagining, analogous somewhat
to that of Professor Longfellow :
" And our hearts, though atoUt and brave,
Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave—"
he amuses his agony of mind by singing—
" Love, lay thy hand on my bosom here ;
List what a knocking and noise is there.
There dwells a carpenter strange to see;
He hammers a coffin that's meant for me.
He knocks and hammers both night and day;
He's driven already my sleep away.
Oh, master carpenter, hasten fast,
That I may slumber and rest at last."

Another while, among his wilder and fiercer
" Dreams," he cries out to a harp, in the voice of
a harper perched upon his tombstone—
"Snow ye, ye strings, so sad, so still,
The strain that wildly used to thrill
Our hearts in the world above?
'Tis heavenly bliss where the angels dwell,
The devils they call it the pain of Hell,
But its name on earth is LOTE."
A nightmare of woe reveals his love to him at
another moment, seated by the side of her rejoicing
bridegroom—

" The bridegroom fills the goblet up ;
lie drinks, and gives the bride the cup ;
With sweetest -smile, I see her thank—
And, woe is me ! my blood she drank !
A rosy apple from the board
The bride presents unto her lord ;
He takes his knife, the fruit to part,—
Ab, me ! he cuts into my heart !
They mingle glances fond and warm,
The bridegroom clasps her in his arm ;
On her fair cheek his kisses glow,
O
Death ! thy icy kiss I know."

Sometimes we cannot but conjecture that Mr.
Wallis allows himself unconsciously to wander in,o
imitation, as in his version of " Don Ramiro,"
beginning " Donna Clara ! Donna Clara," and re-
minding one of the " Lady Clara Vere do Vere" of
Tennyson. Sometimes, ou the other hand, Heine
himself reminds us (may be to him no less uncon-
sciously) of others—as through his " Lay of Re-
pentance" we catch a glimpse as it were of the con-
ceits of Cowley, or through his " Lay of the
Ducats," revive our memory of Hood's ever-me-
morable Miss Kielmansegge. How wondrously he
paints his own features and his own inner character
at times, this uncompromising satirist—satirist
even of his own foibles 1 Does he not acknowledge
once in the opening of a sonnet addressed to his
brother, B. Heine, nie von Golden.—
I know I bear my head somewhat too high,
My hasty, temper ne'er a cross will brook ;
Should a king seek to daunt me with his look
I should encounter him with steadfast eye."

Crying out at another moment, as in extenuation,
or at least in explanation of his sardonic bitterness
of spirit :
"I sought love everywhere, at every gate
I stretch'd my hands out with a yearning sigh,
And begg'd a little love for charity ;
But mockingly they only gave me hate."
Altogether the " Book of Songs" must be accepted,
as Heinrich Heine himself intimates, as the pro-
duct of a minstrel whose heart is wounded—
" And who from his inmost bosom
Pours, like blood, his tuneful lays,—
He is victor, and his guerdon
From the fairest, sweetest praise."
His weepings, even, he reminds us, in another
part, are eloquent—
" Where'er my bitter tear-drops fall,
The fairest flowers arise ;
Ind into choirs of nightingales
•
Are turn'd my bosom's sighs."
As an example of the infinite tenderness of his