Heine's knowledge of Hebrew was, as already stated, by no means so extensive as to make it credible that he had of himself been able to detect in the poetical portions of the Hebrew Bible certain beauties of form and diction, as well as many of the graceful irregularities which constitute a unique characteristic of their own. Yet he seems to have had a sort of instinctive feeling for them. That such singularities are also met with in many of Heine's lyric songs is a fact that will hardly be disputed, though it is uncertain whether they were really imitations of the Biblical ones or not. At all events, they possess many of the unique qualities which distinguish the poems in the Hebrew Bible. They are characterized by a certain peculiarity of rhythm, by their charming word-pictures, and by their changes from gaiety to melancholy, from sobriety to mirth. They have, moreover, supplied the theme for many of the charming compositions of musicians, like Schubert, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and Schumann. Further, though they have been repeatedly translated into various languages by some of the most eminent scholars of the day, there is scarcely a single version which can be said to preserve a reproduction of the spirit of the original. The following two examples, which are English versions of a Hebrew and German lyric song respectively, may be considered sufficient to prove this. The Hebrew one occurs in the Song of Songs (viii. 6 and 7), and its English translation runs thus:— Love is strong as death; The passion thereof is hard as _Shéol_; Its heat is the heat of fire, A very flame of the Lord! Many waters cannot quench love, Neither can the floods drown it: If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, He would utterly be despised^[169-1]. The second example is represented here by one of Heine's lyric songs, which in the original German runs as follows:— Leise zieht, durch mein Gemüth Liebliches Geläute; Klinge, kleines Frühlingslied, Kling' hinaus ins Weite. Kling' hinaus, bis an das Haus, Wo die Veilchen spriessen, Und wenn du eine Rose schaust, Sag', ich lass' sie grüssen. _Translation._ Softly ring, and through me spring The sweetest tones to-day; Gently ring, small song of spring, Ring out, and far away. Ring and roam, into the home, Where violets you see, And when unto a rose you come, Oh, greet that rose from me. The translation is by Sir Theodore Martin, whose versions of many of Heine's poems and songs are generally considered to be specially good, but it cannot truly be said that in either of these two renderings is there much more than the pale reflection of the charm of the original.