this much may be safely asserted, that in comparatively few poems do those feelings find expression in the form of Weltschmerz.  Now there is something essentially vague about Weltschmerz; it is an atmosphere, a “Stimmung” more or less indefinable, rather than the statement in lyric form of certain definite grievances with their particular and definite causes.  And that is exactly what we find in Lenau, even in his love-songs.  His love-sorrow is blended with his many other heart-aches, with his disappointments and regrets, with his yearning for death.  He sings of his pain rather than of its immediate causes, and the result is an atmosphere of Weltschmerz.

Turning to Heine’s later poems, especially to the “Romanzero,” we find that atmosphere much more perceptible.  But even here the poet is for the most part specific, and his method concrete.  So for instance in “Der Dichter Firdusi"[216] in which he tells a story to illustrate his belief that merit is appreciated and rewarded only after the death of the one who should have reaped the reward.  So also in “Weltlauf,"[217] the first stanza of which suggests a poetic rendering of Matth. 13:12, “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath,”—­to which the poet adds a stanza of caustic ironical comment: 

    Wenn du aber gar nichts hast,
    Ach, so lasse dich begraben—­
    Denn ein Recht zum Leben, Lump,
    Haben nur, die etwas haben.

And again, the poem “Lumpentum"[218] presents an ironical eulogy of flattery.  His failure to realize the hopes of his youth is made the subject of “Verlorne Wuensche"[219] which maintains throughout a strain of seriousness quite unusual for Heine, and concludes: 

    Goldne Wuensche!  Seifenblasen! 
    Sie zerrinnen wie mein Leben—­
    Ach ich liege jetzt am Boden,
    Kann mich nimmermehr erheben.

    Und Ade! sie sind zerronnen,
    Goldne Wuensche, suesses Hoffen! 
    Ach, zu toetlich war der Faustschlag,
    Der mich just ins Herz getroffen.

A number of these lyrics from the Romanzero show very strikingly Heine’s objective treatment of his poems of complaint.  Such selections as “Sie erlischt,"[220] in which he compares his soul to the last flicker of a lamp in the darkened theater, or “Frau Sorge,"[221] which gives us the personification of care, represented as a nurse watching by his bedside, bring his objective method into marked contrast with Hoelderlin’s subjective Weltschmerz.  The same may be said of his autobiography in miniature, “Rueckschau,"[222] which catalogues the poet’s experiences, pleasant and adverse, with evident sincerity though of course with a liberal admixture of witty irony.  Needless to say there is no real Weltschmerz discoverable in such a pot pourri as the following: 

    Die Glieder sind mir rheumatisch gelaehmt,
    Und meine Seele ist tief beschaemt.