13. DAS LIED IST AUS, the jig is up, all is over.
18. ICH TRAGE, I bear, I cherish.
47—58. A rearrangement from two cycles, Lyrisches Intermezzo and Heimkehr. The main theme is the poet's unrequited love for his cousin Amalie Heine (49, Therese).
48. The Lorelei is the name of a high cliff overlooking the Rhine. Clemens Brentano invented the myth, and the theme became popular in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Heine gave it its final form, in which it has practically become a folksong. The first four lines give us the mood of the poet, the second four give the setting of the action. 9-22 describe the action. Notice the utter simplicity of 21 and 22, which characterizes also the short epilogue, 23 and 24. This simple way of ending a poem Heine has in common with the folksong.
4. That does not leave my thought.
18. Impersonal, best rendered by the passive.
50. Notice that this poem has the same tripartite structure as the preceding. (Heine's decided preference for this structure is evinced by the great number of poems of three stanzas.)
3. GANGES, river in India.
9. This bit of nature description, although unconventional, does not lack truth. Goethe offers a similar example, when he speaks of schalkhafte (roguish, waggish) Veilchen.
51. One of the finest of Heine's nature poems.