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Catholic processions. Such influences make a deep impression on a sensitive poetical mind, and it is quite natural that the poet who wrote at the age of seventeen the allegorical poem Die Weihe, with reference to himself, and beginning with the lines:

Einsam in der Waldkapelle,

Vor dem Bild der Himmelsjungfrau,
Lag ein frommer, bleicher Knabe,
Demutsvoll dahingesunken,

should, at the age of about twenty-two, have written Die Wallfahrt nach Kevlaar. Besides, I have never yet seen any poet blamed for having described in prose or poetry supernatural apparitions or miracles in which no sensible man believes. In spite of his scepticism, Heine possessed a mind imbued with religious feeling, and it was this circumstance which inspired him to compose one of his earliest poems-the Biblical ballad Belsazar.

There is one commendable quality in Heine's ballads which has not yet, I believe, been sufficiently pointed out. In his purely lyrical poems it not unfrequently occurs-though not so often as hostile critics assert-that he winds up the most delicate poetical sentiments with a satirical hit; thus combining the sweet notes of the nightingale with the jeering tones of the mocking-bird. In his ballads this is hardly ever the case, although a humorous or satirical meaning is connected with some of them, as with his Schelm von Bergen, and still more so with his Begegnung. The humorous ballad existed before Heine, but his is the great merit of having introduced the lighter treatment of narrative poetry into German literature, and of having still further extended the domain of the ballad. This wholesome influence became visible in a marked degree in the Third Period of German ballad literature.

III.

'It is the honourable characteristic of Poetry that its materials are to be found in every subject which interests the human mind.' This weighty saying of Wordsworth found its practical application on a large scale in the ballad-literature of Germany during the third stage of its development. If the antiquarian notion that the old ballad alone has a claim to be considered as a ballad had been rigidly accepted, narrative poetry would have been confined to a very narrow compass. Fortunately the barrier was broken, first by the great luminaries of German poetry, Goethe and Schiller, and subsequently by Uhland and Heine, whose examples were considered maszgebend, and excited a lively emulation among their contemporaries and successors. This was the case to such a degree that every theme capable of being treated as a short narrative in verse, was considered as a legitimate topic for a ballad. There arose consequently such a great variety of ballads that during the Third Period of German ballad poetry they had lost entirely the stamp of unformity, and there was in fact only one poet whose productions in this branch were 'epoch-making.' This poet was Ferdinand Freiligrath.

The great merit of Freiligrath's poems, both lyrical and narrative, consists in the novelty of his subjects, in the vigour of his language, in his many-coloured images, and in the picturesqueness of his details. His muse left the homely village-green, so to speak, and wandered forth into untrodden regions. His fancy carried him to the deserts of Syria and Africa, and the primeval forests of America, and his descriptions of people and scenery were quite in harmony with his exotic topics. Even his rhymes were not of the ordinary kind. They were new, like the subjects he

treated, and they did not steal upon the ear like the soft sounds of a flute, but rather rang like the sonorous notes of a trumpet-blast. All these circumstances combined to produce an immediate and striking effect, and his ballads made his name popular throughout Germany, where they were admired, read and recited by all classes of society. Freiligrath may therefore be said to have further widened the arena of the ballad, and what is more, to have done so by applying that form of poetry to topics which had been till then quite alien to German literature. Thus it was he also who introduced the Tierballade into German ballad poetry. Unfortunately, or perhaps rather fortunately, Freiligrath found very few imitators, for the simple reason that certain forms do not lend themselves easily to imitation. Schiller's pathos and Heine's simplicity of style found perhaps most imitators, although extremely few successful ones; but Freiligrath's sonorous verse seemed beyond the reach of even the boldest versifiers.

Next to Freiligrath should be mentioned Anastasius Grün, the successful adapter of the "Robin Hood" cycle. His ballads, too, are original, both as regards their themes and their forms, and if he had only possessed a more melodious flow of language and the art of restraining his impetuous thoughts, he probably would have struck out a new path by his ballads and romances. The Third Period contains a number of exquisite ballads, which might easily have been increased, but their authors chiefly excelled as lyrical poets, novelists, dramatists, &c., and they only wrote ballads occasionally, in the same way as nearly every poet writes sonnets. Still, the continuity of German ballad poetry has been actively maintained, and some authors of ballads are happily still alive, and may yet enrich German ballad literature before the close of the century; by which time, it may be hoped, the rising

poetical generation in Germany will have produced a sufficient number of interesting short narrative poems to constitute a Fourth Period of German ballad-poetry not unworthy to rank beside the three which have preceded it.

Erste Periode.

Von Bürger bis Chamisso.

G. A. Bürger.

I.

Das Lied vom braven Manne.

Hoch klingt das Lied vom braven Mann,
Wie Orgelton und Glockenklang.
Wer hohes Muts sich rühmen kann,
Den lohnt nicht Gold, den lohnt Gesang.
Gottlob! daß ich fingen und preisen kann,
Zu fingen und preisen den braven Mann.

Der Tauwind kam vom Mittagsmeer
Und schnob durch Welschland trüb' und feucht.
Die Wolken flogen vor ihm her,
Wie wenn der Wolf die Herde scheucht.
Er fegte die Felder, zerbrach den Forst;
Auf Seen und Strömen das Grundeis borst.

B

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