The amorous passion was the soil in which, in its early narrow stages, sympathy for Nature grew up. Was it the thirteenth-century lyrics, the love-songs of the Minnesingers, which unfolded the germ? For the lyric is the form in which the deepest expression can be given to feeling for Nature, and in which she either appears as background, frame, or ornament, or, by borrowing a soul or symbolizing thought and feeling, blends with the inner life. As the German court epics took their material from France, so the German love-songs were inspired by the Provençal troubadours. The national differences stand out clear to view: the vivid glowing Provençal is fresher, more vehement, and mettlesome; the dreamy German more monotonous, tame, and melancholy. The one is given to proud daring, wooing, battle, and the triumph of victory; the other to musing, loving, and brooding enthusiasm. The stamp of the occasional, of improvisation, is upon all Provençal work; while with the German Minnesingers, everything--Nature as well as love--tends to be stereotyped, monotonous. The scanty remains of Troubadour songs[7] often shew mind and Nature very strikingly brought together, either in harmony or contrast. For example, Bernard von Ventadour (1195): It may annoy others to see the foliage fall from the trees, but it pleases me greatly; one cannot fancy I should long for leaves and flowers when she, my dear one, is haughty to me. Cold and snow become flowers and greenery under her charming glance. As I slumber at night, I am waked by the sweet song of the nightingale; nothing but love in my mind quite thrilled by shudders of delight. God! could I be a swallow and sweep through the air, I would go at midnight to her little chamber. When I behold the lark up spring To meet the bright sun joyfully, How he forgets to poise his wing In his gay spirit's revelry. Alas! that mournful thoughts should spring E'en from that happy songster's glee! Strange that such gladdening sight should bring Not joy but pining care to me. A very modern thought which calls to mind Theodore Storm's touching lines after the death of his wife: But this I cannot endure, that the sun smiles as before, clocks strike and bells ring as in thy lifetime, and day and night still follow each other. He connects spring with love: When grass grows green and fresh leaves spring And flowers are budding on the plain, When nightingales so sweetly sing And through the greenwood swells the strain, Then joy I in the song and in the flower, Joy in myself but in my lady more; All objects round my spirit turns to joy, But most from her my rapture rises high. Arnold von Mareuil (about 1200) sings in the same way: