In 1850-51, he travelled to Spain for another Bradford firm, then to the West Indies, and across almost the whole of South America. After a short visit to Europe, he returned to his beloved West Indies, where he did not want to deny himself the pleasure of taking a look at the real original of Louis-Napoleon III, the negro king Soulouque in Haiti. However, as W. Wolff wrote to Marx on August 28, 1856, he had I called him the German proletariat s first and most important poet. Indeed his socialist and political poems are far superior to Freiligrath s in originality and wit, and especially in fervent emotion. He often used the Heine forms, but only to invest them with an entirely original, independent content. Moreover, he differed from most other poets in that he was quite unconcerned about his poems once written. Having sent a copy to Marx or me, he let his verses lie and it was often hard to persuade him to get them printed. Only during the publication of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung was it different. The following extract from a letter of Weerth to Marx from Hamburg, April 28, 1851, shows why: Incidentally, Weerth also wrote less shocking pieces, and I shall take the liberty of sending some of these to the Sozial-demokrat s feuilleton from time to time.
Works of Frederick Engels