Ho! the spring that bursts
  From the mountain height
  Joyous and bright,
  As the gleam of a star.... 
  Down in the vale below
  Flowers bud beneath his tread ... 
  And woo him with fond eyes. 
  And the streamlets of the mountains
  Shout to him, and cry out ‘Brother’! 
  Brother! take thy brothers with thee,
  With thee to thine ancient father,
  To the eternal Ocean,
  Who with outstretch’d arms awaits us.... 
  And so beareth he his brothers
  To their primal sire expectant,
  All his bosom throbbing, heaving,
  With a wild, tumultuous joy.

We see the same pathos—­the pathos of Pindar and the Psalms—­in the comparison: 

  Like water is the soul of man,
  From heaven it comes, to heaven it goes,
  And back again to earth in ceaseless change.

in the incomparable Wanderer, in Wanderer’s Storm Song, and, above all, in Ganymede, already given, of which Loeper remarks: 

The poem is, as it were, a rendering of that letter (Werther’s of May 10th) in rhythm.  The underlying pantheism had already shewn itself in the Wanderer’s Storm Song.  It was not the delight in God of a Brockes, not the adoration of a Klopstock, not sesthetic enjoyment of Nature, not, as in later years, scientific interest; it was rather a being absorbed in, identified with, Nature, a sympathy carried so far that the very ego was surrendered to the elements.

On the Lake of Zurich he wrote, June 15th, 1775: 

  And here I drink new blood, fresh food,
  From world so free, so blest;
  How sweet is Nature and how good,
  Who holds me to her breast.

and Elmire sings in Ermin and Elmire: 

  From thee, O Nature, with deep breath
  I drink in painful pleasure.

One of the gems among his Nature poems is Autumn Feelings (it was the autumn of his love for Lilli): 

  Flourish greener as ye clamber,
  O ye leaves, to seek my chamber;
  Up the trellised vine on high
  May ye swell, twin-berries tender,
  Juicier far, and with more splendour
  Ripen, and more speedily. 
  O’er ye broods the sun at even,
  As he sinks to rest, and heaven
  Softly breathes into your ear
  All its fertilizing fulness,
  While the moon’s refreshing coolness,
  Magic-laden, hovers near. 
  And alas! ye’re watered ever
  By a stream of tears that rill
  From mine eyes—­tears ceasing never,
  Tears of love that nought can still.

The lyrical effect here depends upon the blending of a single impression of Nature with the passing mood—­an occasional poem rare even for Goethe.

In a letter to Frau von Stein he admitted that he was greatly influenced by Nature: 

I have slept well and am quite awake, only a quiet sadness lies upon my soul....  The weather agrees exactly with my state of mind, and I begin to believe that it is the weather around me which has the most immediate effect upon me, and the great world thrills my little one with her own mood.

Again, To the Moon, in the spring 1778, expresses perfect communion between Nature and feeling: