When I am with my sweetheart kind, A happy youth am I; So great the wealth within my mind, I the whole world could buy. But when her swanlike arms I … - Heinrich Heine

Christianity — and that is its greatest merit — has somewhat mitigated that brutal German love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the Cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman [the cross] is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then . . . a play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll.

With his nightcaps and the tatters of his dressing-gown he patches up the gaps in the structure of the universe.

I once saw many flowers blooming
Upon my way, in indolence
I scorned to pick them in my going
And passed in proud indifference.

Now, when my grave is dug, they taunt me;
Now, when I'm sick to death in pain,
In mocking torment still they haunt me,
Those fragrant blooms of my disdain.