Heine dwells upon the ideas which Goethe only calls up to banish again. Goethe, too, can be blasphemous. He wrote that poem which is so frequently quoted, so seldom understood: _Wer nie sein Brod mit Thränen ass_ ("He that with tears did never eat his bread"). It is a bitter, passionate appeal against the ordering of the world. But its bitterness is a bitterness that is choked with tears, not the wild and desperate bitterness of Heine's splendid _Fragen_ ("Questions") or the poem _Lass die heiligen Parabeln_ ("Holy parable discarding"), in which occur the lines: "Warum schleppt sich blutend, elend, Unter Kreuzlast der Gerechte, Während glücklich als ein Sieger Trabt auf hohem Ross der Schlechte? Also fragen wir beständig, Bis man uns mit einer Handvoll Erde endlich stopft die Mäuler, Aber ist das eine Antwort?"[26] [26] Wherefore bends the Just One, bleeding 'Neath the cross's weight laborious, While upon his steed the Wicked Rides all-proudly and victorious? Thus are we for ever asking, Till at length our mouths securely With a clod of earth are fastened-- That is not an answer, surely? (BOWRING) The expression is here, as usual with Heine, on a lower plane, more terrestrial, more boldly outspoken, yet by no means unworthy of the subject. Outbursts of satiety and weariness of life are not infrequent with him. We do not need to search long among his poems to find expressions of the mood of having done for good and all with principle, with endeavour. Nothing of this kind is to be found in Goethe. His _Vanitas vanitatum_, the song _Ich hab' meine Sache auf Nichts gestellt_ ("My trust in nothing now is placed") has, very significantly, become a convivial drinking song. In other words, there is no real, bitter earnest about Goethe's desperation; therefore it soon changes into jovial recklessness. Goethe has not Heine's overpowering feeling of the misery of life, and in so far he is really less Christian. If it is instructive to compare the two poets' lyric expression of fatalistic indifference, it is equally so to compare their expression of the feeling of aspiration, of manly resolve. In this case we may take the song _Feiger Gedanken_ ("Cowardly Thoughts") from _Claudine von Villa Bella_, as characteristic of Goethe; it might serve as a motto for his conduct throughout life. One can hardly imagine a more vigorous expression of manly determination than that of the lines: "Allen Gewalten zum Trutz sich erhalten," &c. (A bold front shown, to powers of earth and heaven). Compare with this Heine's poem, _An die Jungen_ ("To the Young"). The impetuous rush of the rhythm and the picturesque quadruple rhyme would alone suffice to make this a splendid, fascinating composition. The first verse, with its allusion to the golden apples which Hippomenes dropped in front of Atalanta, is a whole poem in itself: