[Sidenote: _August von Platen_] Count August von Platen (born at Ansbach in Bavaria, 1796) was in respect of style one of the most finished and perfect of German poets. His nature (which was refined and self-controlled) led him from the first to form the most romantic attachments with men. He freely and openly expressed his feelings in his verses; of which a great number are practically love-poems addressed to his friends. They include a series of twenty-six sonnets to one of his friends, Karl Theodor German. Of these Raffalovich says (_Uranisme_, Lyons, 1896, p. 351):— “These sonnets to Karl Theodor German are among the most beautiful in German literature. Platen in the sonnet surpasses all the German poets, including even Goethe. In them perfection of form, and poignancy or wealth of emotion are illustrated to perfection. The sentiment is similar to that of the sonnets of Shakespeare (with their personal note), and the form that of the Italian or French sonnet.” [Sidenote: _Platen’s Sonnets_] Platen, however, was unfortunate in his affairs of the heart, and there is a refrain of suffering in his poems which comes out characteristically in the following sonnet:— “Since pain is life and life is only pain, Why he can feel what I have felt before, Who seeing joy sees it again no more The instant he attempts his joy to gain; Who, caught as in a labyrinth unaware, The outlet from it never more can find; Whom love seems only for this end to bind— In order to hand over to Despair; Who prays each dizzy lightning-flash to end him, Each star to reel his thread of life away With all the torments which his heart are rending; And envies even the dead their pillow of clay, Where Love no more their foolish brains can steal. He who knows this, knows me, and what I feel.” [Sidenote: _On the Death of Pindar_] One of Platen’s sonnets deals with an incident, referred to in an earlier page, namely, the death of the poet Pindar in the theatre, in the arms of his young friend Theoxenos:— “Oh! when I die, would I might fade away Like the pale stars, swiftly and silently, Would that death’s messenger might come to me, As once it came to Pindar—so they say. Not that I would in Life, or in my Verse, With him, the great Incomparable, compare; Only his Death, my friend, I ask to share: But let me now the gracious tale rehearse. Long at the play, hearing sweet Harmony, He sat; and wearied out at last, had lain His cheek upon his dear one’s comely knee; Then when it died away—the choral strain— He who thus cushioned him said: Wake and come! But to the Gods above he had gone home.” [Sidenote: _Wagner and Ludwig II._]