He had an incomparable way of striking the chords of love and Nature together. Where his lady-love dwells, 'there is love, and goodness is Nature.' He thinks of her When the bright sunlight shimmers Across the sea, When the clear fountain in the moonbeam glimmers. Thou art seductive and charming; flowers, Sun, moon, and stars only worship thee. There is passionate feeling for Nature in the _May Song_ of his Sesenheimer period: How gloriously gleameth All Nature to me! How bright the sun beameth, How fresh is the lea! White blossoms are bursting The thickets among, And all the gay greenwood Is ringing with song! There's radiance and rapture That nought can destroy, Oh earth, in thy sunshine, Oh heart, in thy joy. Oh love! thou enchanter So golden and bright, Like the red clouds of morning That rest on yon height, It is them that art clothing The fields and the bowers, And everywhere breathing The incense of flowers. Looking back in old age to those happy days of youth, he saw in memory not only Frederica but the scenery around her. He said (_Wahrheit und Dichtung_): 'Her figure never looked more charming than when she was moving along a raised footpath; the charm of her bearing seemed to vie with the flowering ground, and the indestructible cheerfulness of her face with the blue sky.' In Alsace he wrote: One has only to abandon oneself to the present in order to enjoy the charms of the sky, the glow of the rich earth, the mild evenings, the warm nights, at the side of one's love, or near her. and one of the poems to Frederica says: The world lies round me buried deep in mist, but In one glance of thine lies sunshine and happiness. There is a strong pulse of life--life that overflows into Nature--in _The Departure_: To horse! Away, o'er hill and steep, Into the saddle blithe I spring; The eve was cradling earth to sleep, And night upon the mountains hung. With robes of mist around him set, The oak like some huge giant stood, While, with its hundred eyes of jet, Peer'd darkness from the tangled wood. Amid a bank of clouds the moon A sad and troubled glimmer shed; The wind its chilly wings unclosed, And whistled wildly round my head. Night framed a thousand phantoms dire, Yet did I never droop nor start; Within my veins what living fire! What quenchless glow within my heart! And very like it, though in a minor key, is the Elegy which begins, 'A tender, youthful trouble.' He tells in _Wahrheit und Dichtung_ how he found comfort for his love troubles in Frankfort: