In the new poetry two features strike us at once. The sentiment of love between man and woman, which with the ancients and even with early Christian writers scarcely ever rises beyond the level of a sensual passion,[3] becomes transfigured into a profound emotion touching the deepest roots of a man’s nature, and acting as an incentive to noble conduct; and, closely connected with this, the influence of external nature upon the observer begins for the first time to be recognised and to form a subject for poetical treatment.[4] Horace has several charming descriptions of the sights and sounds of spring; but they suggest to him merely that life is short, or that he is thirsty, and in either case he cannot do better than have another drink in company with a friend. So with Homer and Virgil. External nature and its beauty are often touched off in two or three lines which, once read, are never forgotten; but it is always as ornament to a picture, not auxiliary to the expression of a mood. You may search classical literature in vain for such passages as Walther von der Vogelweide’s:-- “Dô der sumer komen was Und die bluomen durch daz gras Wünneclîche ensprungen, Aldā die vogele sungen, Dâr kom ich gegangen An einer anger langen, Dâ ein lûter brunne entspranc; Vor dem walde was sī ganc, Dâ diu nahtegale sanc;”[5] or the unknown Frenchman’s:-- “Ce fu el tans d’esté, el mois de mai, que li jor sont caut, lonc, et cler, et les nuits coies et series. Nicolete jut une nuit en son lit, et vit la lune cler par une fenestre, et si oi le lorseilnol center en garding, se li sovint d’Aucassin sen ami qu’ele tant aimoit;”[6] or the equally unknown Englishman’s:-- “Bytuene Mershe and Averil, When spray biginneth to springe, The lutel foul hath hire wyl On hyre lud to synge; Ich libbe in love-longinge For semlokest of alle thinge, He may me blisse bringe, Icham in hire baundoun.”[7] But it is hardly necessary to multiply instances. By the middle of the thirteenth century the spring, and the nightingales, and the flowering meadows had become a commonplace of amatory and emotional poetry.