Yet, judging from the familiar epigrams of Immermann, which Heine cites at the end of Norderney (Reiseb. i. vol. v. p. 101) as expressive of his own sentiments, he seems to have held but a poor opinion of the West-Eastern poetry that followed in the wake of Goethe’s Divan.  He certainly never attempted anything like an imitation of this poetry, and Oriental form appealed to him even less.  In the famous, or rather infamous, passage of the Reisebilder (vol. vi. pp. 125-149), where he makes his savage attack on Platen, he ridicules that poet’s Ghaselen and speaks derisively of their formal technique as “schaukelnde Balancierkuenste” (ibid. p. 136).  It is probable, however, that he judged the gazal form not so much on its own merits as on the demerits of his adversary.  It is certain at any rate that he has nowhere made use of this form of versification.

Persian influence is not noticeable in his earlier poems;[201] his Buch der Lieder shows no distinctive traces of it.  His later poems, Neue Gedichte (1844) and Romanzero (1851), on the other hand, show it unmistakably.  The Persian image of the rose and the nightingale is of frequent occurrence.  In a poem on Spring (Neue Ged. vol. ii. p. 26) we read: 

    Und mir selbst ist dann, als wuerd’ ich
    Eine Nachtigall und saenge
    Diesen Rosen meine Liebe,
    Traeumend sing’ ich Wunderklaenge—.

The image recurs repeatedly in the Neue Gedichte, e.g. Neuer Fruehling, Nos. 7, 9, 11, 20, 26; Verschiedene, No. 7, and in Romanzero (vol. iii.), pp. 42, 178, 253.  Even in the prose-writings it is found, e.g. Florentinische Naechte (vol. iii. p. 43), Gedanken und Einfaelle (vol. xii. 309).

Again, when Heine speaks of pearls that are pierced and strung on a silken thread ("Kluge Sterne,” Neue Ged. vol. ii. p. 106), he is intensely Persian; still more so when he calls Jehuda ben Halevy’s verses (Romanz. vol. iii. p. 136): 

    Perlenthraenen, die, verbunden
    Durch des Reimes goldnen Faden,
    Aus der Dichtkunst gueldnen Schmiede
    Als ein Lied hervorgegangen.

The Persian fancy of the moth and candle-flame seems to have been in his mind when he wrote ("Die Libelle,” vol. ii. p. 288): 

    Knisternd verzehren die Flammen der Kerzen
    Die Kaefer und ihre liebenden Herzen....

Still another Persian idea, familiar to us from a preceding chapter, is the peacock ashamed of his ugly feet ("Unvolkommenheit,” Romanz. vol. iii. p. 103).

* * * * *

The Persian manner is even employed, and very cleverly, for humorous effect, for instance, in the poem “Jehuda ben Halevy,” cited before.  In this Heine asks Hitzig for the etymology of the name Schlemihl, but meets with nothing but evasive replies until: