The Development Of The Feeling For Nature In The Middle Ages And Modern Times Part 43

Him who dare name, And yet proclaim, Yes, I believe?...

The All-embracer, All-sustainer, Doth he not embrace, sustain Thee, me, himself?

Lifts not the heaven its dome above?

Doth not the firm-set earth beneath us rise?

And beaming tenderly with looks of love, Climb not the everlasting stars on high?

The poems which date directly after the Wetzlar period are full of this sympathetic pantheistic love for Nature--_Mahomet's Song_, for example, with its splendid comparison of pioneering genius to a mountain torrent:

Ho! the spring that bursts From the mountain height Joyous and bright, As the gleam of a star....

Down in the vale below Flowers bud beneath his tread ...

And woo him with fond eyes.

And the streamlets of the mountains Shout to him, and cry out 'Brother'!

Brother! take thy brothers with thee, With thee to thine ancient father, To the eternal Ocean, Who with outstretch'd arms awaits us....

And so beareth he his brothers To their primal sire expectant, All his bosom throbbing, heaving, With a wild, tumultuous joy.

We see the same pathos--the pathos of Pindar and the Psalms--in the comparison:

Like water is the soul of man, From heaven it comes, to heaven it goes, And back again to earth in ceaseless change.

in the incomparable _Wanderer_, in _Wanderer's Storm Song,_ and, above all, in _Ganymede_, already given, of which Loeper remarks:

The poem is, as it were, a rendering of that letter (Werther's of May 10th) in rhythm. The underlying pantheism had already shewn itself in the _Wanderer's Storm Song_. It was not the delight in G.o.d of a Brockes, not the adoration of a Klopstock, not sesthetic enjoyment of Nature, not, as in later years, scientific interest; it was rather a being absorbed in, identified with, Nature, a sympathy carried so far that the very ego was surrendered to the elements.

On the Lake of Zurich he wrote, June 15th, 1775:

And here I drink new blood, fresh food, From world so free, so blest; How sweet is Nature and how good, Who holds me to her breast.

and Elmire sings in _Ermin and Elmire_:

From thee, O Nature, with deep breath I drink in painful pleasure.

One of the gems among his Nature poems is _Autumn Feelings_ (it was the autumn of his love for Lilli):

Flourish greener as ye clamber, O ye leaves, to seek my chamber; Up the trellised vine on high May ye swell, twin-berries tender, Juicier far, and with more splendour Ripen, and more speedily.

O'er ye broods the sun at even, As he sinks to rest, and heaven Softly breathes into your ear All its fertilizing fulness, While the moon's refres.h.i.+ng coolness, Magic-laden, hovers near.

And alas! ye're watered ever By a stream of tears that rill From mine eyes--tears ceasing never, Tears of love that nought can still.

The lyrical effect here depends upon the blending of a single impression of Nature with the pa.s.sing mood--an occasional poem rare even for Goethe.

In a letter to Frau von Stein he admitted that he was greatly influenced by Nature:

I have slept well and am quite awake, only a quiet sadness lies upon my soul.... The weather agrees exactly with my state of mind, and I begin to believe that it is the weather around me which has the most immediate effect upon me, and the great world thrills my little one with her own mood.

Again, _To the Moon_, in the spring 1778, expresses perfect communion between Nature and feeling:

Flooded are the brakes and dells With thy phantom light, And my soul receives the spell Of thy mystic night.

To the meadow dost thou send Something of thy grace, Like the kind eye of a friend Beaming on my face.

Echoes of departed times Vibrate in mine ear, Joyous, sad, like spirit chimes, As I wander here.

Flow, flow on, thou little brook, Ever onward go!

Trusted heart and tender look Left me even so!

Richer treasure earth has none Than I once possessed-- Ah! so rich, that when 'twas gone Worthless was the rest.

Little brook! adown the vale Rush and take my song: Give it pa.s.sion, give it wail, As thou leap'st along!

Sound it in the winter night When thy streams are full, Murmur it when skies are bright Mirror'd in the pool.

Happiest he of all created Who the world can shun, Not in hate, and yet unhated, Sharing thought with none, Save one faithful friend, revealing To his kindly ear Thoughts like these, which o'er me stealing, Make the night so drear.

In January 1778, he wrote to Frau von Stein about the fate of the unhappy Chr. von La.s.sberg, who had drowned himself in the Ilm:

This inviting grief has something dangerously attractive about it, like the water itself; and the reflections of the stars, which gleam from above and below at once, are alluring.

To the same year belongs _The Fisher_, which gave such melodious voice to the magic effect of a s.h.i.+mmering expanse of water, 'the moist yet radiant blue,' upon the mood; just as, later on, _The Erlking_, with the grey of an autumn evening woven ghostlike round tree and shrub, made the mind thrill with foreboding.

Goethe was always an industrious traveller. In his seventieth year he went to Frankfort, Stra.s.sburg, the Rhine, Thuringia, and the Harz Mountains (Harzreise, 1777): 'We went up to the peaks, and down to the depths of the earth, and hammered at all the rocks.' His love for Nature increased with his science; but, at the same time, poetic expression of it took a more objective form; the pa.s.sionate vehemence, the really revolutionary att.i.tude of the _Werther_ period, gave way to one equally spiritual and intellectual, but more temperate.

This transition is clearly seen in the Swiss letters. In his first Swiss travels, 1775, he was only just free from _Werther_, and his mind was too agitated for quiet observation:

Hasten thee, Kronos!...

Over stock and stone let thy trot Into life straightway lead....

Wide, high, glorious the view Gazing round upon life, While from mount unto mount Hovers the spirit eterne, Life eternal foreboding....

Far more significant and ripe--in fact, mature--are the letters in 1779, shewing, as they do, the att.i.tude of a man of profound mind, in the prime of his life and time. He was the first German poet to fall under the spell of the mountains--the strongest spell, as he held, which Nature wields in our lat.i.tudes. 'These sublime, incomparable scenes will remain for ever in my mind'; and of one view in particular, over the mountains of Savoy and Valais, the Lake of Geneva, and Mont Blanc, he said: 'The view was so great, man's eye could not grasp it.'

He wrote of his feelings with perfect openness to Frau von Stein, and these letters extended farther back than those from Switzerland, and were partly mixed with them.

From Selz:

An uncommonly fine day, a happy country--still all green, only here and there a yellow beech or oak leaf. Meadows still in their silver beauty--a soft welcome breeze everywhere. Grapes improving with every step and every day. Every peasant's house has a vine up to the roof, and every courtyard a great overhanging arbour.

The air of heaven soft, warm, and moist. The Rhine and the clear mountains near at hand, the changing woods, meadows, fields like gardens, do men good, and give me a kind of comfort which I have long lacked.

The pen remains as ever the pen of a poet, but he looks at Switzerland now with a mature, settled taste, a.n.a.lyzing his impressions, and studying mountains, glaciers, boulders, scientifically.

Of the Staubbach Fall, near Lauterbrunnen (Oct. 9th, 1779):

The clouds broke in the upper air, and the blue sky came through.

Clouds clung to the steep sides of the rocks; even the top where the Staubbach falls over, was lightly covered. It was a very n.o.ble sight ... then the clouds came down into the valley and covered all the foreground. The great wall over which the water falls, still stood out on the right. Night came on.... In the Munsterthal, through which we came, everything was lofty, but more within the mind's power of comprehension than these. In comparison with the immensities, one is, and must remain, too small.

And after visiting the Berne glacier from Thun (Oct. 14):

It is difficult to write after all this ... the first glance from the mountain is striking, the district is surprisingly extensive and pleasant ... the road indescribably beautiful ... the view from the Lake of Brienz towards the snow mountains at sunset is great.

More eloquent is the letter of October 3rd, from the Munsterthal:

The pa.s.sage through this defile roused in me a grand but calm emotion. The sublime produces a beautiful calmness in the soul, which, entirely possessed by it, feels as great as it ever can feel. How glorious is such a pure feeling, when it rises to the very highest without overflowing. My eye and my soul were both able to take in the objects before me, and as I was preoccupied by nothing, and had no false tastes to counteract their impression, they had on me their full and natural effect. When we compare such a feeling with that we are sensible of, when we laboriously hara.s.s ourselves with some trifle, and strain every nerve to gain as much as possible for it, and, as it were, to patch it out, striving to furnish joy and aliment to the mind from its own creation; we then feel sensibly what a poor expedient, after all, the latter is....

When we see such objects as these for the first time, the unaccustomed soul has to expand itself, and this gives rise to a sort of painful joy, an overflowing of emotion which agitates the mind and draws from us the most delicious tears.... If only destiny had bidden me to dwell in the midst of some grand scenery, then would I every morning have imbibed greatness from its grandeur, as from a lonely valley I would extract patience and repose.

One guesses in the dark about the origin and existence of these singular forms.... These ma.s.ses must have been formed grandly and simply by aggregation. Whatever revolutions may subsequently have up-heaved, rent, and divided them ... the idea of such nightly commotions gives one a deep feeling of the eternal stability of the ma.s.ses.... One feels deeply convinced that here there is nothing accidental, that here there is working an eternal law which, however slowly, yet surely governs the universe.

By the Lake of Geneva, where he thought of Rousseau, he went up the Dole:

The whole of the Pays de Vaux and de Gex lay like a plan before us ... we kept watching the mist, which gradually retired ... one by one we distinctly saw Lausanne ... Vevey.... There are no words to express the beauty and grandeur of this view ... the line of glittering glaciers was continually drawing the eye back again to the mountains.