On his discharge in 1842, he went to Paris where he met Heinrich Heine, Georg Herwegh and Franz von Dingelstedt and continued his medical studies.

He briefly went back to practicing medicine during the Franco-Prussian War and wrote some patriotic poems on this occasion.

Verse epics or narratives in the German Arthurian Literature tradition were undertaken with various success from the mid-19th century forward.

Six volumes of his selected poems were published under the title Dichtungen eines rheinischen Poeten ("Poesies of a Rhine poet," 1871-76).

His verses were not imposing in their depth of passion, originality or flights of imagination, but won the reader through their free and fresh aura, their musical voice, their tender mellowness and their poetical sensuality.