[10] Alas, this mouth is far too proud,
'Twas made but for kissing and sighing;
Perchance it may speak a scornful word,
While I with sorrow am dying.
(BOWRING.)
But this time the threat of dying is not intended to be taken literally. For in another poem we find the sincere assurance:—
"Glaub' nicht, dass ich mich erschiesse,
Wie schlimm auch die Sachen steh'n!
Das Alles, meine Süsse,
Ist mir schon einmal gescheh'n."[11]
[11] Fear not that I shall languish,
Or shoot myself: oh, no!
I've gone through all this anguish
Already, long ago.
(LELAND.)
Undoubtedly, however, he felt deeply and suffered greatly this time also. Strange as it sounds, cousin-love, which is, as a rule, merely the initiation into the life of passion, its first preliminary stage,[12] (Note 20) was the only serious, and not perfectly transient passion known to young Heine. And no feeling experienced later, in his mature manhood, approached in intensity to this youthful twin-passion for two sisters, the second of whom reminded him of the first.
[12] Aux prés de l'enfance on cueille
Les petites amourettes
Qu'on jette au vent feuille à feuille,
Ainsi que des pâquerettes;
On cueille dans ces prairies
Les voisines, les cousines,
Les amourettes fleuries
Et qui n'ont pas de racines.
(RICHEPIN.)
Among the emotional poems which refer to this episode in his psychic history, Heine introduced (exactly as he did in the Intermezzo) verses relating to less serious love affairs, to college adventures, and even to quite low, venal, erotic pleasures. He omitted from the Buch der Lieder some of the most objectionable of these, which originally formed part of the Heimkehr, amongst others the amusing, though impudent:
"Blamier mich nicht, mein schönes Kind,
Und grüss mich nicht unter den Linden;
Wenn wir nachher zu Hause sind,
Wird sich schon Alles finden."[13]
[13] Don't compromise me, my pretty one,
Don't bow to me in "Rotten Row";
At home together afterwards
I'll make up for it, that you know.
—and even such a merry wanton rhyme as:—