“Anfangs wollt’ ich fast verzagen Und ich glaubt’ ich trug es nie, Und ich hab’ es doch getragen— Aber fragt mich nur nicht, wie.” {134} He excels equally in the more imaginative expression of feeling: he represents it by a brief image, like a finely cut cameo; he expands it into a mysterious dream, or dramatizes it in a little story, half ballad, half idyl; and in all these forms his art is so perfect that we never have a sense of artificiality or of unsuccessful effort; but all seems to have developed itself by the same beautiful necessity that brings forth vine-leaves and grapes and the natural curls of childhood. Of Heine’s humorous poetry, “Deutschland” is the most charming specimen—charming, especially, because its wit and humor grow out of a rich loam of thought. “Atta Troll” is more original, more various, more fantastic; but it is too great a strain on the imagination to be a general favorite. We have said that feeling is the element in which Heine’s poetic genius habitually floats; but he can occasionally soar to a higher region, and impart deep significance to picturesque symbolism; he can flash a sublime thought over the past and into the future; he can pour forth a lofty strain of hope or indignation. Few could forget, after once hearing them, the stanzas at the close of “Deutschland,” in which he warns the King of Prussia not to incur the irredeemable hell which the injured poet can create for him—the _singing flames_ of a Dante’s _terza rima_! “Kennst du die Hölle des Dante nicht, Die schrecklichen Terzetten? Wen da der Dichter hineingesperrt Den kann kein Gott mehr retten. “Kein Gott, kein Heiland, erlöst ihn je Aus diesen singenden Flammen! Nimm dich in Acht, das wir dich nicht Zu solcher Hölle verdammen.” {135}