oth the old Hebrew lyrics and of Heine's Lieder is
to be found in the extraordinary subjectivity of the Hebrew
temper--the racial fondness for impassioned, yet artistic,
self-expression.

Yet Heine's Jewish traits are evident not only in the subjectivity of
his lyrics, but in the new and richer character that he gave to the
German Lied. This, hitherto vague and dreamy, became in his hands
startlingly concrete and definite. And this is true even when he
expresses the most subtle feelings. Always the most evanescent
_Stimmung_, not less than moods more primitively simple, find
expression in metaphors so sensuously material as to recall Solomon's
Song. Compare a typical lyric of Heine, such as the following:

Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne
Die liebt' ich alle in Liebeswonne,
Ich lieb' sie nicht mehr, ich liebe allein
Die Kleine, die Feine, die Reine, die Eine;
Sie selber, aller Liebe Bronne,
Ist Rose und Lilie und Taube und Sonne

with the love lyric sung by one of Israel's nameless singers:

Behold thou art fair, my love;
Behold thou art fair;
Thine eyes are as doves.
Behold thou art fair, my beloved
Yea, thou art pleasant:
And our couch is green.
The beams of our house are cedars,
And our rafters are firs.
I am a rose of Sharon,
A lily of the valleys.
As a lily among thorns,
So is my love among the daughters.[C]

Even so brief a comparison may illustrate, though it may not prove,
that for the ultimate source of Heine's Oriental exuberance and
materialization, so new to German literature, we must look in Jewish
not in European culture.

_The Spiritual Depth of Heine_

Perhaps because Heine was in spirit an Oriental, the Germans never
have known exactly what to make of him. Professor Francke says
(_History of German Literature_, p. 526) that Heine "produced hardly a
single poem which fathoms the depths of life." This assertion seems
scarcely defensible in view of such poems as the following:

Wo wird einst des Wandermueden
Letzte Ruhestatte sein?
Unter Palmen in dem Sueden?
Unter Linden an dem Rhein?

Werd' ich wo in einer Wueste
Eingescharrt von fremder Hand?
Oder ruh' ich an der Kueste
Eines Meeres in dem Sand?

Immerhin! Mich wird umgeben
Gotteshimmel, dort wie hie