h. That it was a warm
one even in youth is shewn by the letter in 1766 from Leipzig[9]:

You live contented in M. I even so here. Lonely, lonely,
altogether lonely. Dearest Riese, this loneliness has impressed
my soul with a certain sadness.

This solitary joy is mine,
When far apart from all mankind,
By shady brook-side to recline.
And keep my loved ones in my mind....

He goes on with these lines:

Then is my heart with sorrow filled,
Sad is mine eye.
The flooded brook now rages by,
That heretofore so gently rilled.
No bird sings in the bushes now,
The tree so green is dry,
The zephyr which on me did blow
So cheering, now storms northerly,
And scattered blossoms bears on high.

He was already in full sympathy with Nature. A few of his earlier
poems[10] shew prevalent taste, the allusions to Zephyr and Lima, for
instance, in _Night_; but they are followed by lines which are all
his own.

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, th