"Dort wollen wir niedersinken
Unter dem Palmenbaum,
Und Lieb' und Ruhe trinken
Und träumen seligen Traum."[2]
[2] We'll lie there, in slumber sinking,
'Neath the palm tree by the stream,
Raptures and rest deep drinking,
Dreaming the happiest dream.
(C. G. LELAND.)
But a verse like:
"Dort liegt ein rothblühender Garten
Im stillen Mondenschein,
Die Lotosblumen erwarten
Ihr trautes Schwesterlein."[3]
[3] There a red-blooming garden is lying
In the moonlight silent and clear;
The lotus flowers are sighing
For their sister so gentle and dear.
(E. A. BOWRING.)
beautiful as it is, caressing as it sounds, has something of the unnaturalness which often strikes the reader in Heine's painting of nature. The colouring is vivid, but not real; local colours obtrude themselves to the detriment of the general tone. "Rothblühender," (red-blooming) is hardly the word that it would naturally occur to one to use in describing a garden seen by moonlight. In the lines: "Gegenüber am Fenster sassen Rosengesichter dämmernd und mondbeglänzt." (At the opposite window glimmered rose-faces, bright in the moonlight glow), from the later poem Abenddämmerung ("Twilight"), we have the same sort of effect, produced at the same expense of naturalness. The declaration that the lotus flowers are expecting their dear sister sounds like an old-fashioned compliment in the midst of this gorgeous Ganges imagery. We have much the same expression in the stanza:
"Es flüstern und sprechen die Blumen
Und schau'n mitleidig mich an:
Sei unsrer Schwester nicht böse,
Du trauriger, blasser Mann!"[4]
[4] The flowers are whispering and talking;
With pity my features they scan:
O, pray do not chide our sister,
Thou sorrowful, pale-faced man!
(C. G. LELAND.)
This is a madrigal style which Heine leaves behind in his later work.
Another of the verses in this wonderfully emotional song of the Ganges has characteristics which point to Heine's derivation from the Romantic school, with its arbitrary interpretation of nature:—