CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE GIFT OF WATERMAN THOMAS HEWETT PROFESSOR OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 800 •-^> Jgt Ol^ From * * Nletliodlst Revie'w," July- -A.vi gust, 1S9S THE POETRY OF WILHELM MULLER BY JAMES TAFT HATFIELD e,V. ^.t-i-^tur The Poetry of Wilhelm Muller. aet. VI.— the poetry of wilhelm muller. Those who cherish Miiller's poetry, and believe that it is destined to find more and more a place in the hearts of men, have seen with pleasure the many tributes of appreciation which have recently been paid him in all parts of Germany and in Greece, in connection with the hundredth anniversary of his birth — the seventh of last October. Were it not for certain assignable causes, it would seem beyond belief that he is so nearly unknown among English-speaking people. Our popular encyclopedias, even the Britannica, do not mention him, and the hospitable columns of the various volumes of Poole's Index have no entry under his name. Longfellow, with that fine poetic insight which did him honor, early recognized the value of Miiller's lyrical gifts. In the second book of Hyperion he cliaracterizes him with just appreciation,* and his translations of two of Mailer's lyrics, under the titles "Whither?" and " The Bird and the Ship," have appeared in his works since 1839. Baskerville published three other translations. From the musical point of view, Franz Schubert showed his sympa- thetic estimate of Muller's work by his setting of the song- , cycles " Die schone Miillerin " and " Die Winterreise." These songs, so well known to English and American lovers of music, doubtless sei'ved Tennyson as a model in writing " The Win- dow," and, perhaps, were not without influence upon "The Miller's Daughter " and " Maud." Unfortunately, the English translations which accompany Schubert's music, like nearly all translations of German songs, fail to give an adequate impres- sion of the poetic quality of their originals. Professor Max Miiller's Chips from a German Workshop contains an English translation of his Preface to the latest German edition of his father's poems — a most graceful tribute of filial piety. It should also be said that Dr. C. A. Buchheim has added to his many * It is, perhaps, worthy of remark. In regard to Longfellow's quotation of the stanza from Miiller's " little song where the maiden bids the moon good evening," that It Is not the maiden, but the apprentice, who greets the moon, and that a closer translation would be : This song is a wa,nderer'3 simple lay, Which he sang in the full moon's flooding ray ; And those who read it by candlelight. Cannot understand the song aright, But 'tis easy to a child. Methodist Jieview. other services to German literature in England that of having called specific attention to the value of Miiller's poetry. This list practically concludes what has been done in English for our poet. Foremost among Miiller's qualities is his lively dramatic power, that highest form of literary expression, which, in some sense, reconciles the vai'iant spheres of poetry and the depict- ing arts — Lessing's Handlvm^en and Korper. It is chiefly in his lyric cycles that our poet must be reckoned as a pioneer and creator of poetical form. No poet in any language has so happily carried out this strictly lyric treatment through a series of loosely connected songs, which at the same time show a defi nite progress in clearly marked action. German literature has not, it is true, been devoid of poems in which an indefinite Er holds more or less protracted discourse with an equally nebulous Sie. Uhland's Wanderlieder are older and, doubtless, exer- cised influence on Miiller ; but such works are not to be com- pared in respect of personification and action. Neither can we compare Browning's extended monologues. A near rela- tive in English is, perhaps, to be found in Tennyson's " Maud ; " but the latter, with its analytical introspection and the com- plexity of highly organized social life which it exhibits, is far euough removed from the pathetic simplicity of " The Winter Journey " or " The Rhenish Apprentice." Here, as in almost every interesting movement in newer German literature, we can trace the fecundating influence of Goethe. In the series of four ballads beginning with Der Edelknabe und dis Mullerin Goethe tried bis hand at a new form — that of lyric conversations, the idea of which came to him upon his Swiss journey of 1797. Writing to Schiller, he says that they must make use of it in the future. " There are pretty things of the sort," says he, " in a certain older German period, and much can be expressed in this form. ... I have begun such a conversation between a lad, who is in love with a Mullerin, and the mill brook, and hope to send it soon." Tiie " certain older German " source is, without doubt, the mediaeval Volkslied, which often suggests both the spirit and dainty melody which give charm to these dialogues. Goethe, doubtless, planned that all the four which were conceived at this time should form a connected romance ; but this plan 2Tie Poetry of WUheUm Mutter. was confused, in its working out, by a distracting one of having the songs represent four distinct sources — Old English, Ger- man, French, and Spanish. The resultant series is disconnected and partly contradictory; yet it is easy to understand why Schiller's wife said, " I hope you will let the pretty miller's daughter and the brooks say a good deal more ! " "What Goethe indicated Miiller performed, starting with a more thorough knowledge of the Volkslied than was accessible to Goethe. The most complete cycle, the tragi-comedy " Die schone Mullerin," is in twenty-three songs, of which twenty have been set to music by Schubert. Its prologue breathes the odors and suggests the sounds and sights of spring which are to pervade the whole — the pure air, far from the narrow walls of the city, the woods, fields, valleys, and heights, the clatter- ing mill, the rushing brook, the merry hunter, and the wan- dering apprentice. Then comes a splendid song, full of the bounding, exultant joy of being " on the road," vibrant with the merry whirl and whirring of the wheel and the stones and the tumbling of the noisy water. " O, "Wand'ring is the Mill- er's Joy" is itself enough to make the poet's memory dear to his people. The following song, " Whither ? " is discussed by Longfellow in Hyperion, where he gives a remarkably faithful and melodious version, which fails only in translating the pretty word-play, Du hast, mit deinem Rausohen, Mir ganz berauscht den Sinn. Following this come the other members of the cycle, in most charming metrical variety, for, of the entire twenty-three songs, only four are in the same meter, which is the light bal- lad form that Heine so often uses ; and this variety is no mere conceit, but offers the vehicle for the fullest musical expression of every emotional phase of the little drama. Miiller is a musical poet, in the deepest sense of the word, as Sidney Lanier was musical ; and this is indicated by his recognition by many composers. I do not refer merely to the melodic flow of his diction, nor to the smooth and varied rhythms, but to his art in cornposition, to his development of motive and theme, to Stimmungen, color, and tone. He points toward that day when music and literature, no longer underestimating one another, Methodist Review. shall unite in reciprocal interpretation. It is interesting to read Miiller's own words : I can neither sing nor play; and yet, for all that, I do sing, and play too, when I am composing. If I could only express the melodies that come to me, my songs would be more pleasing than they are. Well, per- haps a kindred spirit may be found some time, whose ear shall catch the melodies from my words, and who will give me back my own. As regards the metrical variety,* we have, now, the anapestic clatter of the mill wheel : See, a mill among the alders, "Which their shade half conceals ; Through murm'ring and singing, Comes clatter of wheels ; now, the more pensive trochaics of When she's sitting at the brookside ; then, the pure song-form of " Impatience," with its recurring refrain, Thine is my heart, and shall be thine forever ; while the increasing vehemence of tlie young miller's passion comes to its climax in the rhapsodic outbreak of " Mine ! " with its single rhyme throughout : Brooklet, cease that song of thine I Wheels, your noisy hum resign ! Merry wood birds who combine, All in line, Let your tuneful lays decline 1 There, where twine Spray and vine. Shall resound one rhyme divine : The sweet, miller's daughter, she is mine! Mine! Spring, are these the only flowers of thine? Sun above, canst thou not brighter shine? Lonely, ah, must I repine. With that word of blessing, " mine," Nor be understood through nature's vast design 1 Upon this follows the ominous " Pause," and the entrance of the iinabashed hunter, breaking ruthlessly into the preserves of the miller's apprentice, whose agitation can find outlet only in six-foot iambics. Where now, so swift, so whirling-wild, my dearest brook ? * In the translations the purpose has been to give an accurate syllable reproduction of the original term. The Poebry of Wilhelm Muller. And for each chapter in his rapidly developing experiences the proper mode is found, up to the last scene — the soothing lullaby of the brook, with the closing accord : The moon climbs high, Clear is the sky — And the heaven up yonder, how far away I Sudermann, in his Geschwister, brings out efEectively the cul- ininative emotional force of the moods of this series. There are other cycles of the same sort; and in shorter groups of related poems the same treatment comes to view, as iu those which have to do with the life of the Bohemian musi- cian, the rustic love-lays of the Italian reaper and herdsman, and the manly poems of German hunter life. In all of them can be noticed the distinct personification and characterization, the sprightliness of movement, the wide range of feeling. The tone is that of everyday life, and the diction is full of homely, direct expressions and of those crisp word-effects in which the German tongue abounds — not displayed and sported with, as is Eiickert's wont, but subordinate to a purpose. What simple intensity of feeling ! Again and again there is the sudden out- break of compressed emotion which is the very soul of lyric poetry. We know it in Heine and Geibel and, more by sugges- tion, in Goethe. So, in " The Winter Journey," where the wanderer, whose tears fall into the snow, tells it that it is to melt and flow into the brook and thus pass, at length, the abode of his beloved in the town: Through the town thou wilt be going, Through its cheerful streets thou'lt roam ; When thou feel'st my tears a-glowing — There, that is my darling's home 1 The justest criticism is that the characters are idealized ; the wandering German apprentice is as little delineated here as is the typical shepherd in English pastoral poetry. However, there is no false sentiment, and the poet is true to his conception. The dramatic gift is further shown in the treatment of indi- vidual subjects, as in the strong delineation of " The Wander- ing Jew," and, especially, in the ballad "The Bell-Founder of Breslau," concerning which we frankly avow our opinion tliat it is the best naive popular ballad in modern literature, viewed from any standjpoint — its artless language, its native Methodist Beoiew. tone, its distinct and limited personification, its stirring sitna- tion, its uninterrupted action, its tragic climax, its moral justi- fication, its harmonious resolution and simple ending ; — but one must exercise self-restraint.* Miiller has entered as fully as any German author into the spirit of the national Volkslied, and his reproductions have the very note of unconscious, im- personal simplicity which belongs to this class of poetry. He never becomes declamatory, stiff, or consciously rhetorical ; nor does he wrest the beauty of the lyric into any other service. As genuine popular types may be mentioned " Tears and Eoses " and " The One called Dead." In " Brotherhood " we notice brevity of form, combined with deepest feeling. With great felicity he has, also, reproduced the very spirit and color of an alien popular literature. His stay of more than a year in Italy, after the completion of his academic studies, es- pecially his summer in Albano, in 1818, afforded him a highly prized opportunity to become intimately acquainted with popu- lar Italian life and songs upon their native soil ; and the fruit of this sympathetic study appears in his " Rustic Songs," the " Songs from the Gulf of Salerno," and " Serenades in Eitor. nelles." In the alternate songs of the first set we have a vivid suggestion of the ancient dialogue of raillery. With the spirit is also exhibited the form, with nmch ingenuity, the experi- ments in assonance being quite as successful as Eiickert's feats in foreign modes — and equally, in our opinion, a doubtful in- vestment, though a meed of admiration cannot be withheld from the linguistic talent which can overcome the difficulties of the excessively artificial and complex form of the ritornelle, as Miil- ler uses it. It is hard to speak with moderation of his preeminent powers as an interpreter of nature, alive and animate in a thousand teeming forms — an interpreter at whose side German litera- ture can place few representatives. What exhilaration in ac- tion, what joy of mere existence ! His poems of nature are full of fresh air. Can any wholesome being fail to catcli the con- tagion of rapturous jubilation in the spring song beginning, Fliugx^ide the sash I fling wide the heart I 0, qiiiclsly I 0, quickly I * In a translation of this ballad (Germania, July, 1893), we have attempted to reproduce its simple tone and the slightly archaic flavor ol Its diction. The Poetry of Wilhelm Muller. with its lively personification of inanimate nature ? How tlie mild breezes, the dazzling sun rays, the twitter of birds, and the laughter of brooklets come out in " The Birch Grove near En- dermay," just as the chilly mood of winter pervades " The Win- ter Journey." All the wholesome sea gales that blow go trumpeting and fluttering through the lines of " The Bird and the Ship." Longfellow's translation here is inadequate, because of the loss of the feminine rhyming cadence, which adds sen- sibly to the careening movement ; and for obvious scruples Longfellow has dropped out the sixth stanza from his version.* "We prize very highly that little group, " Seashells from the Island of Kiigen," with their delightful portrayal of all the refreshing charm which the surging sea offers to the jaded comer from tlie distant inland — the briny air, the dashing of the surf, the gleaming sand, on which lie shining pebbles and seashells; and the fancies of the poet are as unforced and variegated as the as- pects of nature. So, in " Sea and Sky : " As each bright cloud is painted on the sea, As from its bosom flash the sunbeams free ; Even as it trembles with each zephyr light, That hovers downward from the distant height ; So is my heart thy sea — my heaven, thou ; Wilt thou its waves at length repose allow ? The poem " Vineta " in tliis series is a very good type of a form of simile in which tlie comparison is left to the reader. The first three stanzas give the material scene, the last three the play of fancy. In the popular legend, tlie proud city of Vineta lies sunken in the sea between Eugen and the mainland, and many a fisherman has caught glimpses of its reflected glory and heard the faint throbbing of its mysterious bells : From the sea's deep, deep recesses cometli Faintest sound of distant evening bells. Bringing to our ears its wondrous tidings ; Of a city far submerged it tells. Sunk beneath the ocean's heaving surface, Stand for evermore its ruins old ; From its roofs and towers, deeply hidden, Shine again reflected rays of gold. * A manifest error bas perpetuated Itself in all the editions of our American poet. In the last stanza, the word Jubeigesang appears constantly as " weary song." It seems certain that Longfellow must have written '* merry song," and that by an easy misreading of his sinuous handwriting the wrong form found Its place in tie text, first published in 1839. After this time Longfellow seems not to bave paid further attention to Muller's poetry. Methodist Review. And the seaman, wlio at ruddy evening Once hath felt its weird reflection's charm, Saileth ever toward tlie selfsame vision, Though steep cliffs be near to do him harm. From my heart's deep, deep recesses cometh Taintest sound, like distant evening bells. Ah, it bringeth to me wondrous tidings ; Of the love once loved again it tells. For a world of beauty there lies hidden, There forever stand its ruins old; Only in my dreams, that come at midnight. Shine again its heavenly rays of gold. Then I fain would plunge beneath the surface. And would sink in its reflected gold ; And, at times, methinks an angel message Calls me back into that city old. The " Songs from tlie Gulf of Salerno " glow with a Heyse- like prodigality of tropical light and color. Very charming is the little Italian picture, " The Fortunate Fisher-maiden : " From shore I watched her fishing Out in her rowboat small ; The fish leaped to the meshes. As though 'twere to a ball ; The net seemed all too little — Not one would stay below ; She took it all right calmly. And thought, " It must be so." Then from her boat she landed ; She stood upon the sand. The ocean surged and struggled. As though 'twould rush on land. And at her feet bright corals And seashells it did throw; She picked them up right calmly, And thought, " It must be so." I, sorry shepherd lover. What is my wooing worth — Its flowers and its ribbons ? Hers is the whole round earth. All hearts beat warmly toward her — A heart of stone must glow ; She heeds it like the sea surf, And thinks, " It must be so." The Poetry of Wilhelm Muller. If I could offer to Uer The heavens' evening blue, The stars' bright silver sparkle, For her 'twere nothing new ; She'd hold it up before her And say, " 'Tis mine, you know," Would quite forget to thank me, And think, '' It must be so." Wliat boots thy timid tinkling, Thou paltry lute of mine? Although her window's open. She heeds no note of thine ; For flutes, and horns, and trumpets. And merry pipes that blow — She's dancing to their measure. And thinks, " It must be so." "With his other titles Miiller must be allowed that of the poet of German wine, pa/r excellence. Heine tells, in the Ha/rzreise, of singing some of Muller's songs at a roaring supper on the Brocken. Muller's exuberant spirits find that outlet which was characteristic of the day in which he lived, in the swing and fling of convivial songs. It is no disloyalty to the better spirit of abstinence of our own time and country that we can enjoy the liearty mirth and social unconstraint reflected in these songs. Says the poet : My muse has turned in At tlie innkeeper's door. Has tied on her apron, And wanders no more. She's minded to tend there The table and bin ; See, she stands at the gateway And beckons me in. Many of the Tafellleder are very light, and the collection en- dureS much culling ; but the jollity of " Est, Est," " King Wine," and " Noah's Ark " is indestructible. The situation in " The Tippler and his Horse" is comparable to that in the " Bab Ballads." " The King of Hukapetapank " is typical of the sheer hilarity of many of the set : In Hukapetapank there lived A monarch without peer. Who, by an ancient use, got drunk Once every blessed year. Methodist Review. And not a soul dared taste of wine In all that lovely land, So long as on a single leg That king contrived to stand. But when the king sank to the floor And from his throne did fall, The living then waxed riotous Within that royal hall ; They drank from pitcher and from plate, From hat and hand they drank — Lords, ladies, servants, man, and beast, In Hukapetapank. Each one became a royal guest, Long as the king did sleep, And open in the palace stood ' The cupboards broad and deep. The beggar, as from flowing brooks, "With crown wine filled his cup, And thought himself a very king — But then, the king woke up ! Alas, the fun was over now. Though much was still unquafEed; The henchmen strode into the house. And roared, " What, are you daft? " And whoso lay, or sat, or stood. Befuddled, or clear-brained. Was straightway as a toper seized And in the court arraigned. So 'twas in Hukapetapank, And so it goes to-day ; 'Twere pity for so good a use To fall into decay. But look alive when Majestat Begins to rub his eyes. A fool is he who lingers then ; Who starts for home is wise 1 But there is a more earnest side to these drinking songs. In the praise of Rhine wine is the praise of something which belongs to the old German days, something which has reniained unchanged from the times of national power and unity : German, free, unspoiled, and lusty. In the German land. Only wine remains among us By our river's strand. The Poetry of Wilhelm Mutter. It was a period when men of ardent political aspirations had little in the external situation to afEord cheer or mirth or any- thing other than bitterness of spirit. It is characteristic of ab- solutism that it shuts off the highest outlets of human activity and relegates men to some medium of self-forgetfulness. T speak now of Muller as the poet of freedom — his best-known role ; for many who are otherwise unacquainted with him are familiar with his title, Griechennvuller. "With maturing pow- ers, which were unfortunately to be ended at thirty-tliree years of age, he deepens in intensity and fire. His series of " Greek Songs " would demand large consideration in our estimate of his personality and influence, had it not already been somewhat fully presented to English readers.* A close parallel in spirit and form could be drawn between the "Greek Songs" and Whittier's " Voices of Freedom." The note of earnestness seems conspicuously lacking in the poems of earlier days, the days of his contemporaries Komer, Arndt, and Schenkendorf. Though he left his university studies to fight in the war of liberation, there is no echo, however faint, of its spirit in his younger years ; and yet no heart beat higher with the pure passion for liberty. This lies in the very independence of Mailer's nature. The patronage of a prince could not debase the sterling metal of his manliness : Not with golden oliains of honor, in the cage of mean control, Has my prince laid me in fetters and wrought evil to my soul ; In his country's fairest garden vine-clad house he gave to me. And, all free, I sing my measures out into an air as free. Such a song is vi^orthy of him. Glad and free are love and lays. Hail, prince 1 no servile parrot needest thou to prate thy praise. A liberal of the liberals, he felt keenly the oppressive years of the conservative reaction ; but those were not times when empty words were noble. In 1821 began the revolt of the Greeks against the devastating tyranny of Turkey — no ideal, stainless national uprising, like tlie great days of Prussia in 1813, but, for all that, a supreme struggle of the modern repre- sentatives of tlie mighty name of Hellas against barbarism and heathenism. Muller sent out set after set of " Griechenlieder " flaming with tremendous passion — sometimes, it must be con- * See Max Muller, Chips from a German TTorfcshop, vol. Ill, p. 108, ff. Methodist Review. fessed, reflecting the savage bloodthirstiness of their subject. It is, perhaps, not too much to say that Muller made reaction- ary Europe feel the pulsations of freedom and compelled it into sympathy with the heroic efiEorts of the Greeks, while sounding fearlessly the note of the inherent rights of man. The drumbeat of these long lines shook the heavy air of dun- geons and fortresses. To Miiller's maturer and more earnest powers belong his three hundred epigrams. It would be an attractive digression to consider the poetic value of this class of writing in a literature which owns a Logau, an Angelus Silesius, a Lessing, and a Goethe. Whatever opinion may be held on this point, it is cer- tain that many of Miiller's epigrams are to be numbered among tlie ETTsa nrepoevTa which are to live. At first, in a lighter vein, they touch with genial humor on love and wine, then sliow a more stinging satire and a sticking barb to the arrow, particularly in those directed against pi-ide of birth and ofBcial presumption. I cite a few : JUSTICE AND LOVE. Justice to each one says, " Have what Is thine 1 " But Love to each one says, " Have what is mine I " QUEKY. Plant, would'st rather, closely sheltered, under narrow glass remain, Or beneath the open heaven feel the storm, the sun, the rain? THE WINGED WOHD. Has the word the lips once quitted, you'll o'ertake it nevermore, Though next moment your repentance scurry off with coach and four. THE REAL INSTEUOTOB. Follow not, as learner, him to whom the thronging crowds resort. Who would make a doctor out of each who comes, as though in sport j Who, witli pains, can show the doctor that he is a learner still — Seek his low and lonely portal, and pass humbly o'er its sill. VALUE OF ANOESTOKS. Ancestors are ciphers, which, to ciphers added, naught amount; Set an integer before them, and the ciphers all will count. RULE OP LABOR. Be idle and halloo — Get fed for two ; Work and keep quiet — Scraps are your diet. The Poetry of Wilhelm Muller. PEAYER WITHOUT WORKS. Lazy at work, but zealous in praying ; No one to pump, but fine organ playing. TWOFOLD ART OP GOVEHNMENT. To liate the people and to fear it to tyrants seems a maxim riglit; That ruler's wise and good who loves it, yet dares to hold its. censure light. THE WISE WOMAy. For Heaven's sake, a thousand women, Solomon, thou wisest man I " I'm searching always to discover a single wise one if I can." He searched, unwearied and undaunted ; and when, at last, one came to hand, He there found waiting — God-a-mercyl — an Ethlop from Blaekman's Land! HEAVENWARD SLANOES. Do you know why Goodman's glances always wander toward the skies? 'Tis because he dare not look a fellow-creature in the eyes. Miiller, whose own life was of so short a span, is particularly the poet of the young. His unspoiled, almost childish, fresh- ness of emotion ; his graceful delicacy and charm, added, in so many of his themes, to vigorous manliness ; his simplicity and sincerity of feeling ; his contagious vitality, are factors which are especially attractive to young Americans and which have a legitimate place in their growth and development. Something there is in him which perfectly responds to the poetic impulses of youth. And is not unspoiled youth, as the normal state, always poetic ? Admitting a considerable proportion of trifles in tlie body of his works, we are none the less compelled to recognize the permanency of the greater part. He is a popular poet, in the best sense of the term — as Burns is a popular poet, and as much of Longfellow's work is increasingly popular. One of the first earnest workers in the inspiring field of thorough- going Germanic studies and cradled in the romantic school, he felt how to make available the aesthetic materials of mediaeval German ; and, as the interpreter and continuator of its vital spirit, in terms of distinctlj"^ contemporary life, he must be re- garded as one of its most valuable exponents. The admirable edition of his poems by his son, Professor Max Miiller, a type of all that such an edition ought to be, is quite available, and offers what seems to be especially needed in these days of improved " text-books " and anthologies — the complete body of the author's poetical works as the subject- 39 FIFTH SERIES, VOL. XI. Methodist JSeview. matter for study and comparison. Those who regard what is simple and artless as shallow and beneath the dignity of earnest students, who think lightly of " Der Glocbenguss zu Breslau " because it is not a " Kraniche des Ibykus " or yet an " Erl- konig," who contemn " Die schone Miillerin " in comparison with a " Maud " or a " Fra Lippo Lippi," may pass our poet by; but as long as that which comes from the heart shall go to the heart his name must keep an honored place among those which are to live and be loved. Cornell University Library PT 2436.M7Z7 3 1924 026 312 458