Julian Schmidt says[3]: "Later on, descriptive poetry, like didactic, fell into disgrace; but at that time this dwelling upon the minutiae of Nature served to enrich the imagination; Kleist"s descriptions are thoughtful and interesting." It is easy to see that his longer poems cost him much labour; they were not the pure songs of feeling that gush out spontaneously like a spring from the rock. But in eloquence and keenness of observation he excelled his contemporaries, although he, too, followed the fashion of eighteenth-century literature, and coquetted with Greek nymphs and deities, and the names of winds and maidens.
The tendency to depression, increased by his failure to adapt himself to military life, made him incline more and more to solitude.
_To Doris_ begins:
Now spring doth warm the flakeless air, And in the brook the sky reflects her blue, Shepherds in fragrant flowers find delight ...
The corn lifts high its golden head, And Zephyr moves in waves across the grain, Her robe the field embroiders; the young rush Adorns the border of each silver stream, Love seeks the green night of the forest shade, And air and sea and earth and heaven smile.
_Sighs for Rest_:
O silver brook, my leisure"s early soother, When wilt thou murmur lullabies again?
When shall I trace thy sliding smooth and smoother, While kingfishers along thy reeds complain; Afar from thee with care and toil opprest, Thy image still can calm my troubled breast.
O ye fair groves and odorous violet valleys, Girt with a garland blue of hills around, Thou quiet lake, where, when Aurora sallies, Her golden tresses seem to sweep the ground: Soft mossy turf, on which I wont to stray, For me no longer bloom thy flow"rets gay.
As when the chilly nights of March arise And whirl the howling dust in eddies swift, The sunbeams wither in the dimmer skies, O"er the young ears the sand and pebbles drift: So the war rages, and the furious forces The air with smoke bespread, the field with corses.
The vineyard bleeds, and trampled is the com, Orchards but heat the kettles of the camp....
As when a lake which gushing rains invade Breaks down its dams, and fields are overflowed.
So floods of fire across the region spread, And standing corn by crackling flames is mowed: Bellowing the cattle fly; the forests burn, And their own ashes the old stems in-urn.
He too, who fain would live in purity, Feels nature treacherous, hears examples urge, As one who, falling overboard at sea, Beats with his arms and feet the buoyant surge, And climbs at length against some rocky brink, Only beneath exhausted strength to sink.
My cheek bedewed with holy tears in vain, To love and heaven I vowed a spotless truth: Too soon the n.o.ble tear exhaled again, Example conquered, and the glow of youth To live as live one"s comrades seems allowed; He who would be a man, must quit the crowd.
He, too, wrote with hymn-like swing in praise of the Creator: "Great is the Lord! the unnumbered heavens are the chambers of his fortress, storm and thunder-clouds his chariot."
The most famous of his poems, and the one most admired in his own day, was _Spring_. This is full of love for Nature. It describes a country walk after the muggy air of town, and conveys a vivid impression of fresh germinating spring, though it is overlaid by monotonous detail:
Receive me, hallowed shades! Ye dwellings of sweet buss!
Umbrageous arches full of sleeping dark delights ...
Receive me! Fill my soul with longing and with rest ...
And you, ye laughing fields, Valleys of roses, labyrinths of streams, I will inhale an ecstasy with your balsamic breath, And, lying in the shade, on strings of gold Sing your indwelling joys....
On rosy clouds, with rose and tulip crowned, Spring has come down from heaven....
The air grew softer, fields took varied hues, The shades were leafy, and soft notes awoke And flew and warbled round the wood in twilight greenery.
Brooks took a silver tint, sweet odours filled the air, The early shepherd"s pipe was heard by Echo in the dale....
Most dear abode! Ah, were I but allowed Down in the shade by yon loquacious brook Henceforth to live! O sky! thou sea of love, Eternal spring of health, will not thy waters succour me?
Must, my life"s blossom wither, stifled by the weeds?
Johann Peter Uz, who was undervalued because of his sickly style, wrote many little songs full of feeling for Nature, though within narrow limits. Their t.i.tles shew the pastoral taste[4]:--_Spring_, _Morning, Shepherd"s Morning Song, The Muse with the Shepherds, The Meadow in the Country, Vintage, Evening, May, The Rose, Summer and Wine, Winter Night, Longing for Spring_, etc.
Many are fresh and full of warm feeling, especially the Spring Songs:
See the blossoming of Spring!
Will"t not taste the joys it showers?
Dost not feel its impulse thrill?
Friends! away our cares we"ll fling!
In the joyous time of flowers, Love and Bacchus have their will.
and
O forest, O green shady paths, Dear place of spring"s display!
My good luck from the thronging town Has brought me here away.
O what a fresh breeze flows Down from the wooded hill, How pleasantly the west wind flies With rustling dewy wing Across the vale, Where all is green and blossoming.
The personification is more marked in this:
Thou hast sent us the Spring in his gleaming robe With roses round his head. Smiling he comes, O G.o.d!
The hours conduct him to his flowery throne Into the groves he enters and they bloom; fresh green is on the plain, The forest shade returns, the west wind lovingly unfurls Its dewy plumes, and happy birds begin to sing.
The face of Nature Thou hast deckt with beauty that enchants, O Thou rich source of all the beautiful ...
My heart is lifted up to Thee in purest love.
His feeling for Nature was warm enough, although most of his writing was so artificial and tedious from much repet.i.tion of a few ideas, that Kleist could write to Gleim[5]: "The odes please me more the more I read them. With a few exceptions, they have only one fault, too many laurel woods; cut them down a little. Take away the marjoram too, it is better in a good sausage than in a beautiful poem."
Joh. Georg Jacobi also belonged to the circle of poets gathered round Gleim; but in many respects he was above it. He imitated the French style[6] far less than the others--than Hagedorn, for example; and though the Anacreontic element was strong in him, he overcame it, and aimed at pure lyrical feeling. From his Life, written by a devoted friend, we see that he had all the sentimentality of the day,[7] but with much that was healthy and amiable in addition, and he touched Nature with peculiar freshness and genuineness.
In a poem to his brother, about the Saale valley near Halle, he wrote:
Lie down in early spring on yon green moss, By yon still brook where heart with heart we spoke, My brother....
Will"t see the little garden and the pleasant heights above, So quiet and unspoilt? O friend, "tis Nature speaks In distant wood, near plain and careless glade, Here on my little hill and in the clover....
Dost hear the rustle of the streamlet through the wood?
Jacobi was one whose heart, as he said of Gleim, took a warm interest in all that breathed, even a violet, and sought sympathy and companionship in the whole range of creation.
This is from his _Morning Song_:
See how the wood awakes, how from the lighted heights With the soft waving breeze The morning glory smiles in the fresh green....
Here by the rippling brook and quivering flower, We catch Love"s rustle as she gently sweeps Like Spring"s own breath athwart the plains.
Another song is;
Tell me, where"s the violet fled.
Late so gayly blowing.
Springing "neath fair Flora"s tread, Choicest sweets bestowing?
Swain, the vernal scene is o"er, And the violet blooms no more.
Say, where hides the blushing rose, Pride of fragrant morning, Garland meet for beauty"s brows, Hill and dale adorning?
Gentle maid, the summer"s fled, And the hapless rose is dead.
Bear me then to yonder rill, Late so freely flowing, Watering many a daffodil On its margin glowing.
Sun and wind exhaust its store, Yonder rivulet glides no more.
Lead me to the bowery shade, Late with roses flaunting, Loved resort of youth and maid, Amorous ditties chanting.
Hail and wind with fury shower, Leafless mourns the rifled bower!
Say, where bides the village maid, Late yon cot adorning?
Oft I"ve met her in the glade Fair and fresh as morning.