racteristics of Sanskrit poetry, its tender love
for the objects of nature, for flowers and animals and the similes and
metaphors inspired thereby, and he invests them with all the grace and
charm peculiar to his muse. Some of his finest verses owe their
inspiration to the lotus; and in that famous poem "Die Lotosblume
aengstigt,"--so beautifully set to music by Schumann--the favorite flower
of India's poets may be said to have found its aesthetic apotheosis. As
is well known, there are two kinds of lotuses, the one opening its
leaves to the sun (Skt. _padma_, _pankaja_), the other to the moon (Skt.
_kumuda_, _kairava_). Both kinds are mentioned in _Sakuntala_ (Act. V.
Sc. 4, ed. Kale, Bombay, 1898, p. 141): _kumudanyeva sasankah savita
bhodhayati pankajanyeva_ "the moon wakes only the night lotuses, the sun
only the day lotuses."[193] It is the former kind, the nymphaea
esculenta, of which Heine sings, and his conception of the moon as its
lover is distinctively Indic and constantly recurring in Sanskrit
literature. Thus at the beginning of the first book of the _Hitopadesa_
the moon is called the lordly bridegroom of the lotuses.[194]

The splendor of an Indic landscape haunts the imagination of the poet.
On the wings of song he will carry his love to the banks of the Ganges
(vol. i. p. 98), to that moonlit garden where the lotus-flowers await
their sister, where the violets peep at the stars, the roses whisper
their perfumed tales into each other's ears and the gazelles listen,
while the waves of the sacred river make sweet music. And again in a
series of sonnets addressed to Friederike (_Neue Ged._ vol. ii. p. 65)
he invites her to come with him to India, to its palm-trees, its
ambra-blossoms and lotus-flowers, to see the gazelles leaping on the
banks of the Ganges, and the peacocks displaying their gaudy plumage, to
hear Kokila singing his impassioned lay. He sees Kama in the features of
his beloved, and Vasanta hovering on her lips; her smile moves the
Gandharvas in their golden, sunny halls to song.

* * * * *

Allusions to episodes from Sanskrit literature are not infrequent in
Heine's writings. The famous struggle between King Visvamitra with the
sage Vasistha for example is mockingly referred to in two stanzas (vol.
i. p. 146).[195] His own efforts to win the favor of a certain Emma
(_Neue Ged._ ii. 54) the poet likens to the great act of penance by
which King Bhagiratha brough