Part 35 (1/2)

The lake how tranquil! From its level brim The sh.o.r.e swells gently, wooded o'er with green, And buries in its verdure dim The l.u.s.tre of the summer e'en....

The inner and outer life are closely blended in _The Early Grave_:

Welcome, O silver moon, Fair still companion of the night!

Friend of the pensive, flee not soon; Thou stayest, and the clouds pa.s.s light.

Young waking May alone Is fair as summer's night so still, When from his locks the dews drop down, And, rosy, he ascends the hill.

Ye n.o.ble souls and true, Whose graves with sacred moss are strawn.

Blest were I, might I see with you The glimmering night, the rosy dawn.

This is true lyric feeling, spontaneous, not forced. Many of his odes, and parts of the _Messias_, shew great love for Nature. There is a fine flight of imagination in _The Festival of Spring_:

Not into the ocean of all the worlds would I plunge--not hover where the first created, the glad choirs of the sons of light, adore, deeply adore and sunk in ecstasy. Only around the drop on the bucket, only around the earth, would I hover and adore.

Hallelujah! hallelujah! the drop on the bucket flowed also out of the hand of the Almighty.

When out of the hand of the Almighty the greater earth flowed, when the streams of light rushed, and the seven stars began to be--then flowedst thou, drop, out of the hand of the Almighty.

When a stream of light rushed, and our sun began to be, a cataract of waves of light poured, as adown the rock a storm-cloud, and girded Orion, then flowedst thou, drop, out of the hand of the Almighty. Who are the thousandfold thousands, who all the myriads that inhabit the drop?...

But thou, worm of Spring, which, greenly golden, art fluttering beside me, thou livest and art, perhaps, ah! not immortal....

The storm winds that carry the thunder, how they roar, how with loud waves they stream athwart the forest! Now they hush, slow wanders the black cloud....

Ah! already rushes heaven and earth with the gracious rain; now is the earth refreshed....

Behold Jehovah comes no longer in storm; in gentle pleasant murmurs comes Jehovah, and under him bends the bow of peace.

In another ode, _The Worlds_, he calls the stars 'drops of the ocean.'

Again, in _Death_ he shews the sense of his own nothingness, in presence of the overpowering greatness of the Creator:

Ye starry hosts that glitter in the sky, How ye exalt me! Trancing is the sight Of all Thy glorious works, Most High.

How lofty art Thou in Thy wondrous might; What joy to gaze upon these hosts, to one Who feels himself so little, G.o.d so great, Himself but dust, and the great G.o.d his own!

Oh, when I die, such rapture on me wait!

As regards our subject, Klopstock performed this function--he tuned the strings of feeling for Nature to a higher pitch, thereby excelling all his contemporaries. His poetry always tended to extravagance; but in thought, feeling, and language alike, he was ahead of his time.

The idyllic was now cultivated with increased fervour, especially by the Gottingen Brotherhood of Poets. The artificial and conventional began to wane, and Nature's own voice was heard again. The songs of Claudius were like a breath of spring.[15] His peasant songs have the genuine ring; they are hail-fellow-well-met with Nature. Hebel is the only modern poet like him.

EVENING SONG

The lovely day-star's run its course....

Come, mop my face, dear wife, And then dish up....

The silvery moon will look down from his place And preside at our meal over dishes and grace.

He hated artificiality:

Simple joy in Nature, free from artifice, gives as great a pleasure as an honest lover's kiss.

His _Cradle Song to be sung by Moonlight_ is delightful in its naive humour (the moon was his special favourite):

Sleep then, little one. Why dost thou weep?

Moonlight so tender and quiet so deep, Quickly and easily cometh thy sleep.