Think of the following lines, which Goethe puts into Mignon's mouth: "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, weiss was ich leide, Allein und abgetrennt von aller Freude, Seh' ich an's Firmament nach jener Seite. Ach, der mich liebt und kennt, ist in der Weite.-- Es schwindelt mir, es brennt mein Eingeweide. Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, weiss was ich leide."[21] 21: My grief no mortals know, except the yearning! Alone, a prey to woe, all pleasure spurning, Up towards the sky I throw a gaze discerning. He who my love doth know seems ne'er returning; With strange and fiery glow _my heart is burning_[*] My grief no mortals know, except the yearning. (BOWRING) [*]In the original, _my bowels are burning_. This is the master in the fulness of his power. Much art has been expended in the representation of the wearing monotony of longing--the five doubly rhyming lines, the languishing metre--interrupted by the audacious, realistic expression: "Es schwindelt mir, es brennt mein Eingeweide." Now compare with this, one of Heine's most perfect expressions of pure love-longing, and we shall see what the plastic fancy and the perfected laconicism of style which we traced in course of development have succeeded in producing for time and eternity: "Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam Im Norden auf kahler Höh'. Ihn schläfert: mit weisser Decke Umhüllen ihn Eis und Schnee. Er träumt von einer Palme, Die fern im Morgenland Einsam und schweigend trauert Auf brennender Felsenwand."[22] [22] A pine-tree stands alone on A bare bleak northern height; The ice and snow they swathe it As it sleeps there, all in white. 'Tis dreaming of a palm-tree, In a far-off Eastern land, That mourns, alone and silent, On a ledge of burning sand. (Sir THEODORE MARTIN.) This is hardly rhymed. The only real rhyme is the very commonplace _Land_ and _Wand_. The pine dreams in the snow, the palm grieves dumbly in the burning heat--that is all. It is not seen, it is fancied or invented, hence it cannot be painted (though I did once see a painting of it in a German exhibition, an idiotically absurd, double picture); but it is, nevertheless, an unforgettable, an immortal poem. And the reason is that the symbol is so marvellously effective in its simplicity--these two clear outlines instinct with feeling, which express the impossibility of overcoming the obstacle which prevents the union of two who really belong to each other. If Goethe's strength lies in the expression of healthy feelings, comparatively simple and uncomplicated, Heine's lies in the expression of complex modern feeling, of feelings whose unsound state is the result of painful experiences. Goethe could never have written the following lines, with their jarring contrasts and enigmatical meaning: