Happy the man who has the town escaped! To him the whistling trees, the murmuring brooks, The shining pebbles preach Virtue's and wisdom's lore.... The nightingale on him sings slumber down; The nightingale rewakes him, fluting sweet, When shines the lovely red Of morning through the trees. Then he admires Thee in the plain, O God! In the ascending pomp of dawning day, Thee in Thy glorious sun. The worm--the budding branch-- Where coolness gushes in the waving branch Or o'er the flowers streams the fountain, rests, Inhales the breadth of prime The gentle airs of eve. His straw-decked thatch, where doves bask in the sun, And play, and hop, invites to sweeter rest Than golden halls of state Or beds of down afford. To him the plumy people Chatter and whistle on his And from his quiet hand Peck crumbs or peas or grains His _Winter Song_ runs: Summer joys are o'er, Flow'rets bloom no more; Wintry joys are sweeping, Through the snow-drifts peeping; Cheerful evergreen Rarely now is seen. No more plumèd throng Charms the woods with song; Ice-bound trees are glittering, Merry snow-birds twittering, Fondly strive to cheer Scenes so cold and drear. Winter, still I see Many charms in thee, Love thy chilly greeting, Snow-storms fiercely beating, And the dear delights Of the long, long nights. Hoeltz was the most sentimental of this group; Joh. Heinrich Voss was more robust and cheerful. He put his strength into his longer poems; the lyrics contain a great deal of nonsense. An extract from _Luise_ will shew his idyllic taste: Wandering thus through blue fields of flax and acres of barley, both paused on the hill-top, which commands such a view of the whole lake, crisped with the soft breath of the zephyr and sparkling in sunshine; fair were the forests of white barked birch beyond, and the fir-trees, lovely the village at the foot half hid by the wood. Lovely Luise had welcomed her parents and shewn them a green mound under an old beech tree, where the prospect was very inviting. 'There we propose,' said she, to unpack and to spread the breakfast. Then we'll adjourn to the boat and be rowed for a time on the water,' etc. We find the same taste, often expressed in a very original way, in both the brothers Stolberg. In Christian Stolberg's _Elegy to Hangwitz_, for instance, another poem has these lines: Thither, where 'mong the trees of life, Where in celestial bowers Under your fig-tree, bowed with fruit And warranting repose, Under your pine, inviting shady joy, Unchanging blooms Eternal Spring! Friedrich Stolberg was a very prophet of Nature; in his ode _Nature_ he says: He who does not love Nature cannot be my friend. His prayer may serve as the motto of his day: