Mir ist Verse zu machen und kuenstliche Vers’ ein Beduerfnis,
    Fehlt mir ein eigenes Lied, so uebersetz’ ich mir eins.

And again to his own question, Musst du denn immer dichten?, p. 159, he answers: 

    Ich denke nie ohne zu dichten,
    Und dichte nie ohne zu denken.

Graf von Schack has aptly applied to Rueckert’s poems the famous sentence which a Spaniard pronounced about Lope de Vega, that no poet wrote so many good plays, but none also so many poor ones.[191]

* * * * *

Whatever defects it may have, Rueckert’s Oriental work is nevertheless indisputably of the greatest importance to German literature.  More than any one else he brought over into it a new spirit and new forms; and it is due primarily to his unsurpassed technical skill that the German language is to-day the best medium for an acquaintance, not only with the literature of the West, but also with that of the East.

FOOTNOTES: 

[145] See Beyer, Friedrich Rueckert, Fkft. a.  M. 1868, pp. 101, 102.

[146] Vol. v. pp. 200-237.

[147] So Hammer himself thought at the time.  See Rob.  Boxberger, Rueckert-Studien, Gotha, 1878, p. 224.  Such also was the opinion of the scholarly von Schack, Strophen des Omar Chijam, Stuttg. 1878, Nachwort, p. 117, note.  A copy of the original divan of Rumi has not been accessible to me.

[148] Cf. for instance No. 8, in ii. with Red. p. 175, and No. 24 in ii. p. 235, with Red. p. 188.

[149] Vol. v. ii. 25, p. 236.

[150] Cf.  Hafid, Saqi Namah, couplets 77, 78 for the three names mentioned above.  The figure is most familiar to the English reader from Fitzgerald’s version, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.  Boston, 1899, p. 211, xxxvii.  See also ’Umar Xayyam ed.  Whinfield, London, 1883, No. 466.

[151] They were published in Deutscher Musenalmanach, 1838, and do not belong properly to the collection here discussed.

[152] See essay on this by Robert Boxberger in Rueckert-Studien, pp. 210-278.  Also Beyer, Neue Mittheil. vol. i. p. 213; vol. ii. pp. 201-204 for the date of many of these poems.

[153] Also a few of the Vierzeilen-Sprueche, pp. 102-108, e.g.  No. 30=Nitis. 31.

[154] Friedr.  Rueckert, Grammatik, Poetik u.  Rhetorik der Perser, ed.  W. Pertsch, Gotha, 1874, p. 187.

[155] Ibid. p. 360.

[156] Fr. Wilken, Hist.  Gasnevid.  Berol. 1832, p. 13, Latin p. 148.

[157] Cf. transl. of Baharistan for Kama Shastra Society, Benares, 1887, p. 180.  The Persian text of these fables appeared in 1805 in the chrestomathy appended to Fr. Wilken’s Institutiones ad Fundamenta Linguae Persicae, Lipsiae, 1805, pp. 172-181.

[158] This poem was mistranslated by Hammer in his Divan des Hafis, Tueb. 1812, vol. ii. p. 553.  Bodenstedt has given a version in rhymed couplets:  Der Saenger von Schiras, Berl. 1877, p. 129.