The following song is the famous _Ich grolle nicht_[25] (‘I do not complain’), which is easily one of the great songs of the world. Accepting the words as real tragedy, we must pronounce the music one of the noblest expressions of emotion in all song literature. The quiet and dignified melodic line of the voice part seems to suggest the hero’s stoic acceptance of his fate. The repeated chords of the accompaniment, moving in solemn progression, reflect the calm of a great soul. And the marvellous bass part, moving deeper and deeper down the scale, calling forth from the modern grand piano its most terrible and wonderful tones, till the very soul seems to quiver in response--this furnishes a foundation of grandeur which might have served for a tragedy of Æschylus. But Schumann rarely repeated this achievement. He was a gentle poet or an ardent technician, or, in his later years, a verbose bore, but only rarely, as in this instance, a tragedian. The eleventh song of the cycle, ‘A Young Man Loved a Maiden,’ has a simple melody suited to the spirit of the words, supported by a lilting accompaniment admirably unified in style. The next song, ‘On the Bright Summer Morning,’ is dignified by the device of the continued downward arpeggio in the accompaniment. The thirteenth song, ‘I Wept in My Dreams,’ is especially interesting. The voice part is almost a recitative, and the accompaniment a sort of orchestral commentary. Sometimes deep chords form the only support for the singer, sometimes little rhythmical phrases tell their message. The whole suggests admirably the effort of the speaker to disentangle his dreams from the mental mist that surrounds them. The fourteenth song, ‘Each Night in Dreams,’ is one of the most appealing melodies Schumann ever wrote. The last of the series, _Die alten, bösen Lieder_ (‘The Old and Evil Songs’), is a magnificent example of Schumann’s power to put subtle moods into his accompaniment. The mocking spirit of the words, the grandiose strutting of little emotions, the legendary paraphernalia which is invoked by the poet--these seem to be embalmed in this tricky but brilliant accompaniment. The postlude to the cycle is the melody of song number 12, freely developed.