auf Erden nichts
mehr zu thun, und ich wuenschte dann, Gervinus moechte
recht haben, indem er, wie Georg mir erzaehlte, mir einen
baldigen Zusammenbruch und Tod prophezeite.[150]

1842. Ich habe ein wolluestiges Heimweh, in Deinen Armen zu
sterben.[151]

1843. Selig sind die Betaeubten! noch seliger sind die Toten![152]

1844. In dieses Waldes leisem Rauschen
Ist mir, als hoer' ich Kunde wehen,
Dass alles Sterben und Vergehen
Nur heimlichstill vergnuegtes Tauschen.[153]

If we should seek for the Leit-motif of Lenau's Weltschmerz, we should
unquestionably have to designate it as the _transientness of life_. Thus
in the poem "Die Zweifler," he exclaims:

Vergaenglichkeit! wie rauschen deine Wellen
Durch's weite Labyrinth des Lebens fort![154]

Ten per cent, of all Lenau's lyrics bear titles which directly express
or suggest this thought, as for example, "Vergangenheit,"
"Vergaenglichkeit," "Das tote Glueck," "Einst und Jetzt," "Aus!," "Eitel
Nichts," "Verlorenes Glueck," "Welke Rose," "Vanitas," "Scheiden,"
"Scheideblick," and the like; while in not less than seventy-one per
cent of his lyrics there are allusions, more or less direct, to this
same idea, which shows beyond a doubt how large a component it must have
been of the poet's characteristic mood.

If Hoelderlin, the idealist, judges the things which are, according to
his standard of things as they _ought to be_, Lenau, on the other hand,
measures them by the things which _have been_.

Friedhof der entschlafnen Tage,
Schweigende Vergangenheit!
Du begraebst des Herzens Klage,
Ach, und seine Seligkeit![155]

Nowhere is this mental attitude of the poet toward life in all its forms
more clearly defined than in his views of nature. That this is an
entirely different one from Hoelderlin's goes without saying. Lenau has
nothing of that naive and unsophisticated childlike nature-sense which
Hoelderlin possessed, and which enabled him to find comfort and
consolation in nature as in a mother's embrace. So that while for
Hoelderlin intercourse with nature afforded the greatest relief from his
sorrows, Lenau's Weltschmerz was on the contrary intensified thereby.
For him the rose has no fragrance, the sunlight no warmth, springtime no
charms, in a word, nature has neither tone nor temper, until such has
been assigned to it by the poet himself. And as he is fully aware of the
art