Laube. Das Land war
stumm; nur hie und da ertoente im Wald ein stuerzender Baum, vom Landmann
gefaellt, und neben uns murmelte der vergaengliche Regenbach hinab ins
ruhige Meer."[73]

In spite of his deep and persistent Weltschmerz, Hoelderlin rarely gives
expression to a longing for death. This forms so prominent a feature in
the thought of other types of Weltschmerz, for instance of Lenau and of
Leopardi, that its absence here cannot fail to be noticed. It is true
that in his dramatic poem "Der Tod des Empedokles," which symbolizes the
closing of his account with the world, Hoelderlin causes his hero to
return voluntarily to nature by plunging into the fiery crater of Mount
Etna. But Empedokles does this to atone for past sin, not merely to rid
himself of the pain of living; and thus, even as a poetic idea, it
impresses us very differently from the continual yearning for death
which pervades the writings of the two poets just mentioned. Leopardi
declared that it were best never to see the light, but denounced suicide
as a cowardly act of selfishness; and yet at the approach of an
epidemic of cholera, he clung so tenaciously to life that he urged a
hurried departure from Naples, regardless of the hardships of such a
journey in his feeble condition, and took refuge in a little villa near
Vesuvius. Hoelderlin's Weltschmerz was absolutely sincere.

Numerous passages might be quoted to show that Hoelderlin's mind was
intensely introspective. This is true also of Lenau, even to a greater
extent, and may be taken as generally characteristic of poets of this
type. The fact that this introspection is an inevitable symptom in many
mental derangements, hypochondria, melancholia and others, indicates a
not very remote relation of Weltschmerz to insanity. In Hoelderlin's
poems there are not a few premonitions of the sad fate which awaited
him. One illustration from the poem "An die Hoffnung," 1801, may
suffice:

Wo bist du? wenig lebt' ich, doch atmet kalt
Mein Abend schon. Und stille, den Schatten gleich,
Bin ich schon hier; und schon gesanglos
Schlummert das schau'rende Herz im Busen.[74]

It is impossible to read these lines without feeling something of the
cold chill of the heart that Hoelderlin felt was already upon him, and
which he expresses in a manner so intensely realistic and yet so
beautiful.

Having thus attempted a review of the growth of Hoelderlin's Weltschmerz
and of its chief characteristi