nd
Fortunatus, in their charming descriptions of scenery, was now a
thing of the past. Feeling for Nature--sentimental, sympathetic,
cosmic, and dogmatic--had dwindled down to mere pleasure in
cultivating flowers in the garden, to the level Aachen landscape and
such like; and the power to describe the impression made by scenery
was, like the impression itself, lame and weary.

It was the night of the decline breaking over Latin literature.

And how did it stand with German literature up to the eleventh
century? A German Kingdom had existed from the treaties of Verdun and
Mersen (842), but during this period traces of German poetry are few,
outweighed by Latin.

The two great Messianic poems, _Heliand_ and _Krist_, stand out
alone. In the _Heliand_ the storm on the lake of Gennesaret is
vividly painted:

Then began the power of the storm; in the whirlwind the waves
rose, night descended, the sea broke with uproar, wind and water
battled together; yet, obedient to the command and to the
controlling word, the water stilled itself and flowed serenely.

In _Krist_ there is a certain distinction in the description of the
Ascension, as the rising figures soar past the constellations of
stars, which disappear beneath their feet; for the rest, the symbolic
so supplants the direct meaning, that in place of an epic we have a
moralizing sermon. But there are traces of delight in the beauty of
the outer world, in the sunshine, and sympathy is attributed to
Nature:

She grew very angry at such deeds.

The poem _Muspilli_ (the world fire) shews the old northern feeling
for Nature; still more the few existing words of the _Wessobrunner
Prayer_:

This I heard as the greatest marvel among men,
That once there was no earth nor heaven above,
The bright stars gave no light, the sun shone not,
Nor the moon, nor the glorious sea.

How plainly 'the bright stars' and the 'glorious sea' shew joy in the
beauty of the world!

In the oldest Scandinavian poems the inflexible character of the
Northerner and the northern landscape is reflected; the descriptions
are short and scanty; it is not mountain, rock, and sea which count
as beautiful, but pleasant, and, above all, fruitful scenery. The
imagery is bold: (Kenninger) the wind is the wolf of wood or sail,
the sea the pathway of the whale, the bath of the diving bird, etc.

The Anglo-Saxon was especially distinguished by his forcible images
and epithets. In