ge at the foot
half hid by the wood. Lovely Luise had welcomed her parents and
shewn them a green mound under an old beech tree, where the
prospect was very inviting. 'There we propose,' said she, to
unpack and to spread the breakfast. Then we'll adjourn to the
boat and be rowed for a time on the water,' etc.

We find the same taste, often expressed in a very original way, in
both the brothers Stolberg. In Christian Stolberg's _Elegy to
Hangwitz_, for instance, another poem has these lines:

Thither, where 'mong the trees of life,
Where in celestial bowers
Under your fig-tree, bowed with fruit
And warranting repose,
Under your pine, inviting shady joy,
Unchanging blooms
Eternal Spring!

Friedrich Stolberg was a very prophet of Nature; in his ode _Nature_
he says:

He who does not love Nature cannot be my friend.

His prayer may serve as the motto of his day:

Holy Nature, heavenly fair,
Lead me with thy parent care;
In thy footsteps let me tread
As a willing child is led.
When with care and grief opprest,
Soft I sink me on thy breast;
On thy peaceful bosom laid,
Grief shall cease, nor care invade.
O congenial power divine,
All my votive soul is thine.
Lead me with thy parent care,
Holy Nature, heavenly fair!

He, too, sang the moon; but Klopstock's influence seems to have
carried him to higher flights than his contemporaries. He wrote in
fine language of wild scenery, even sea and mountains, which had
played no part in German poetry before.

TO THE SEA

Thou boundless, shining, glorious sea,
With ecstasy I gaze on thee;
Joy, joy to him whose early beam
Kisses thy lip, bright ocean stream.
Thanks for the thousand hours, old sea,
Of sweet communion held with thee;
Oft as I gazed, thy billowy roll
Woke the deep feelings of my soul.

There are beautiful notes, reminding one of Goethe, in his
_Unsterbliche Juengling, Ode to a Mountain Torrent_.

Immortal youth!
Thou streamest forth from rocky caves;
No mortal saw
The cradle of thy might,
No ear has heard
Thy infant stammering in the gushing Spring.
How lovely art thou in thy silver locks!
How dreadful thundering from the echoing crags!
At thy approach
The firwood quakes;
Thou easiest down, with root and branch, the fir
Thou seizest on the rock,
And roll'st it scornful like a pebble on.
Thee the sun clothes in dazzling beams of glory,