confession in this regard in a letter to Moser (1823):  “Aber es geht mir oft so, ich kann meine eigenen Schmerzen nicht erzaehlen, ohne dass die Sache komisch wird."[206] How thoroughly this mental attitude had become second nature with Heine, may be inferred from a statement which he makes to Friederike Roberts (1825):  “Das Ungeheuerste, das Ensetzlichste, das Schaudervollste, wenn es nicht unpoetisch werden soll, kann man auch nur in dem buntscheckigen Gewaende des Laecherlichen darstellen, gleichsam versoehnend—­darum hat auch Shakespeare das Graesslichste im “Lear” durch den Narren sagen lassen, darum hat auch Goethe zu dem furchtbarsten Stoffe, zum “Faust,” die Puppenspielform gewaehlt, darum hat auch der noch groessere Poet (der Urpoet, sagt Friederike), naemlich Unser-Herrgott, allen Schreckensszenen dieses Lebens eine gute Dosis Spasshaftigkeit beigemischt."[207]

In not a few of his lyrics Heine gives us a truly Lenauesque nature-setting, as for instance in “Der scheidende Sommer:” 

    Das gelbe Laub erzittert,
    Es fallen die Blaetter herab;
    Ach, alles, was hold und lieblich
    Verwelkt und sinkt ins Grab.[208]

This is one of the comparatively few instances in Heine’s lyrics in which he maintains a dignified seriousness throughout the entire poem.  It is worth noting, too, because it touches a note as infrequent in Heine as it is persistent in Lenau—­the fleeting nature of all things lovely and desirable.[209] This is one of the characteristic differences between the two poets,—­Heine’s eye is on the present and the future, much more than on the past; Lenau is ever mourning the happiness that is past and gone.  Logically then, thoughts of and yearnings for death are much more frequent with Lenau than with Heine.[210]

Reverting to the point under consideration:  even in those love-lyrics in which Heine does not wilfully destroy the first serious impression by the jingling of his harlequin’s cap, as he himself styles it,[211] he does not succeed,—­with the few exceptions just referred to,—­in convincing us very deeply of the reality of his feelings.  They are either trivially or extravagantly stated.  Sometimes this sense of triviality is caused by the poet’s excessive fondness for all sorts of diminutive expressions, giving an artificial effect, an effect of “Taendelei” to his verses.  For example: 

    Du siehst mich an wehmuetiglich,
    Und schuettelst das blonde Koepfchen,
    Aus deinen Augen schleichen sich
    Die Perlenthraenentroepfchen.[212]

Sometimes this effect is produced by a distinct though unintended anti-climax.  Nowhere has Heine struck a more truly elegiac note than in the stanza: 

    Der Tod, das ist die kuehle Nacht,
    Das Leben ist der schwuele Tag. 
    Es dunkelt schon, mich schlaefert,
    Der Tag hat mich muede gemacht.[213]

There is the most profound Weltschmerz in that.  But in the second stanza there is relatively little: