My cheek bedewed with holy tears in vain,
To love and heaven I vowed a spotless
truth:
Too soon the noble tear exhaled again,
Example conquered, and the glow of youth
To live as live one’s comrades seems
allowed;
He who would be a man, must quit the crowd.
He, too, wrote with hymn-like swing in praise of the Creator: ’Great is the Lord! the unnumbered heavens are the chambers of his fortress, storm and thunder-clouds his chariot.’
The most famous of his poems, and the one most admired in his own day, was Spring. This is full of love for Nature. It describes a country walk after the muggy air of town, and conveys a vivid impression of fresh germinating spring, though it is overlaid by monotonous detail:
Receive me, hallowed shades! Ye dwellings
of sweet buss!
Umbrageous arches full of sleeping dark
delights ...
Receive me! Fill my soul with longing
and with rest ...
And you, ye laughing fields,
Valleys of roses, labyrinths of streams,
I will inhale an ecstasy with your balsamic
breath,
And, lying in the shade, on strings of
gold
Sing your indwelling joys....
On rosy clouds, with rose and tulip crowned,
Spring has come down from heaven....
The air grew softer, fields took varied
hues,
The shades were leafy, and soft notes
awoke
And flew and warbled round the wood in
twilight greenery.
Brooks took a silver tint, sweet odours
filled the air,
The early shepherd’s pipe was heard
by Echo in the dale....
Most dear abode! Ah, were I but allowed
Down in the shade by yon loquacious brook
Henceforth to live! O sky! thou sea
of love,
Eternal spring of health, will not thy
waters succour me?
Must, my life’s blossom wither,
stifled by the weeds?
Johann Peter Uz, who was undervalued because of his sickly style, wrote many little songs full of feeling for Nature, though within narrow limits. Their titles shew the pastoral taste[4]:—Spring, Morning, Shepherd’s Morning Song, The Muse with the Shepherds, The Meadow in the Country, Vintage, Evening, May, The Rose, Summer and Wine, Winter Night, Longing for Spring, etc.
Many are fresh and full of warm feeling, especially the Spring Songs:
See the blossoming of Spring!
Will’t not taste the joys it showers?
Dost not feel its impulse thrill?
Friends! away our cares we’ll fling!
In the joyous time of flowers,
Love and Bacchus have their will.
and
O forest, O green shady paths,
Dear place of spring’s display!
My good luck from the thronging town
Has brought me here away.
O what a fresh breeze flows
Down from the wooded hill,
How pleasantly the west wind flies
With rustling dewy wing
Across the vale,
Where all is green and blossoming.


