[3] Lazarus: Das Leben der Seele, 2nd edition, p. 229.
Heine's short stanza has, then, two advantages over Wilhelm Müllers—more passion, and much greater condensation of style.
In his favourite short iambic metre, Heine is influenced by Wilhelm Müller, in his trochees he resembles another Romantic, far more Romantic poet, Clemens Brentano. In Heine's Romancero there are some curious correspondences with Brentano's Romanzen vom Rosenkranze ("Romances of the Rosary"). These latter were written before Romancero, but as they were not published till 1853, Heine cannot possibly have been influenced by them.
In the second of the Rosary Romances we read of the hero, Cosmo, that:
"Aus dem Wasserspiegel mahnt
Ihn des Alters ernste Bote:
Du wirst bald die Schuld bezahlen,
Spricht des Hauptes Silberlocke."[4]
[4] The solemn messengers of age, the white locks of the man who gazes at him from the water-mirror, cry: Soon thou must pay thy debt.
In Heine's posthumous poem Bimini, one of the divisions begins:
"Einsam auf dem Strand von Cuba,
Vor dem stillen Wasserspiegel,
Steht ein Mensch und er betrachtet
In der Flut sein Konterfei.
Eben nicht mit sonderlichem
Wohlgefallen scheint der Greis
In dem Wasser zu betrachten
Sein bekümmert Spiegelbildniss."[5]
[5] On the shore of Cuba's island
Stands an old man solitary,
Gazing at his own reflection
In the tranquil water-mirror.
Not with any special pleasure
Does the sad and aged man
See beneath him in the water
His own image, sorrowful.
Metre, situation, idea are identical in the two passages.