He was possessed by the longing to roam--out into the wide world, across the great ocean. Instead of German "garret poetry," he wrote, in his garret, scenes laid in the deserts of Africa and the primeval forests of America. He attempted tropical local colouring, which was at times successful, at times unnatural; his linguistic specialty was new and remarkable rhymes, produced with the assistance of resonant foreign words like "Sykomore," "Tricolore," &c. His good verses were like living, his bad, in their lifeless splendour, like stuffed humming-birds. But this African Freiligrath is not the best Freiligrath. Freiligrath, the Liberal patriot, is greatly his superior. After Herwegh's political challenge had roused him, he took himself to task, tested with simple-minded fairness those sympathies and tendencies of his nature as to which he himself was not yet absolutely clear, and discovered in the depths of his being an unquenchable desire for liberty and a sympathy with the oppressed which on occasion could develop into burning indignation and hatred. His genius chose the revolutionary path, pursued it at full speed, and finally spread its wings and flew. _Marseillaise_ after _Marseillaise_ came from the poet's pen. O these hymns of 1848! they are enthusiasm itself, the enthusiasm that begets enthusiasm. In the earlier ones we have fierceness, faith, revolutionary piety, fiery sarcasm, the intoxicated jubilation of victory; in the later, noble despair, sublime in its expression.