The Asclepiadeian stanza he employs much less frequently, the Sapphic only once, and that with indifferent success.  It was the ode, dithyramb and hymn, the serious lyric, which Hoelderlin selected as the models for his poetic fashion.  In this purpose he was not alone, for his friend Neuffer writes to him in 1793, with an enthusiasm which in the intensity of expression common at the time, seems almost like an inspiration:  “Die hoehere Ode und der Hymnus, zwei in unsern Tagen, und vielleicht in allen Zeitaltern am meisten vernachlaessigte Musen! in ihre Arme wollen wir uns werfen, von ihren Kuessen beseelt uns aufraffen.  Welche Aussichten!  Dein Hymnus an die Kuehnheit mag Dir zum Motto dienen!  Mir gehe die Hoffnung voran."[58]

But it was in the form much more than in the contents of his poems, that Hoelderlin carried out the Greek idea.  Most of his lyrics are occasional poems, or have abstract subjects, as for example, “An die Stille,” “An die Ehre,” “An den Genius der Kuehnheit,” and so on.  Only here and there does he take a classic subject or introduce classic references.  The truth of the matter is, that with all his fervid enthusiasm for Hellenic ideals, and with all his Greek cult, Hoelderlin was not the genuine Hellenist he thought himself to be.  This is due to the fact that his turning to Greece was in its final analysis attributable rather to selfish than to altruistic motives.  He wanted to get away from the deplorable realities about him, the things which hurt his tender soul, and so he constructed for himself this idealized world of ancient and modern Greece, and peopled it with his own creations.

In Hoelderlin’s “Hyperion,” we have the first poetic work in German which takes modern Greece as its locality and a modern Hellene as its hero.  Hoelderlin calls it “ein Roman,” but it would be rather inaccurately described by the usual translation of that term.  It is not only the poetic climax of his Hellenism, but also the most complete expression of his Weltschmerz in its various phases.  It must naturally be both, for the poet and the hero are one.  He speaks of it as “mein Werkchen, in dem ich lebe und webe."[59] Its subject is the emancipation of Greece.  What little action is narrated may be very briefly indicated.  Russia is at war with Turkey and calls upon Hellas to liberate itself.  The hero and his friend Alabanda are at the head of a band of volunteers, fighting the Turks.  After several minor successes Hyperion lays siege to the Spartan fortress of Misitra.  But at its capitulation, he is undeceived concerning the Hellenic patriots; they ravage and plunder so fiercely that he turns from them with repugnance and both he and Alabanda abandon the cause of liberty which they had championed.  To his bride Hyperion had promised a redeemed Greece—­a lament is all that he can bring her.  She dies, Hyperion comes to Germany where his aesthetic Greek soul is severely jarred by the sordidness, apathy and insensibility of these “barbarians.”  Returning to the Isthmus, he becomes a hermit and writes his letters to Bellarmin, no less “thatenarm und gedankenvoll” himself than his unfortunate countrymen whom he so characterizes.[60]