his grief,--and we have promise of a
poem of genuine Weltschmerz. Even through the second and third stanzas
this feeling is not destroyed, although the terms "Schelm" and "Toelpel"
gently arouse our suspicion:

Des Tages Laerm verhallt, es steigt
Die Nacht herab mit langen Floehren.
In ihrem Schosse wird kein Schelm,
Kein Toelpel deine Ruhe stoeren.

But the very next stanza brings the transition from the sublime to the
ridiculous:

Hier bist du sicher vor Musik,
Vor des Pianofortes Folter,
Und vor der grossen Oper Pracht
Und schrecklichem Bravourgepolter.

* * * * *

O Grab, du bist das Paradies
Fuer poebelscheue, zarte Ohren--
Der Tod ist gut, doch besser waer's,
Die Mutter haett' uns nie geboren.

It is scarcely necessary to point out that the specific cause which the
poet confides to us of his "wounds, tears and pains" is ridiculously
unimportant as compared with the conclusion which he draws in the last
two lines.

Evidently then, he does not wish us to take him seriously, nor could we,
if he did. Thus in their very attitude toward the ills and vexations of
life, there appears a most essential difference between Lenau and Heine.
Auerbach aptly remarks: "Spott und Satire verkleinern, Zorn und Hass
vergroessern das Object."[215] And Lenau knew no satire; where Heine
scoffed and ridiculed, he hated and scorned, with a hatred that only
contributed to his own undoing. With Heine the satire's the thing,
whether of himself or of others, and to this he willingly sacrifices the
lofty sentiments of which he is capable. Indeed he frequently introduces
these for no other purpose than to make the laugh or grimace all the
more striking. And with reference to his love affair with Amalie, while
the question as to the reality and depth of his feelings may be left
entirely out of discussion, this much may be safely asserted, that in
comparatively few poems do those feelings find expression in the form of
Weltschmerz. Now there is something essentially vague about Weltschmerz;
it is an atmosphere, a "Stimmung" more or less indefinable, rather than
the statement in lyric form of certain definite grievances with their
particular and definite causes. And that is exactly what we find in
Lenau, even in his love-songs. His love-sorrow is blended with his many
other heart-aches, with his disappointments and regrets, with his
yearning for death. He si