Sad winter's past--the stork is here,
Birds are singing and nests appear;
Bowery homes steal into the day,
Flow'rets present their full array;
Like little snakes and woods about,
The streams go wandering in and out.
His motives, like his diminutives, are constantly recurring. He uses many bold and poetic personifications; the sun 'combs her golden hair,' the moon is a good shepherd who leads his sheep the stars across the blue heath, blowing upon a soft pipe; the sun adorns herself in spring with a crown and a girdle of roses, fills her quiver with arrows, and sends her horses to gallop for miles across the smooth sky; the wind flies about, stopping for breath from time to time; shakes its wings and withdraws into its house when it is tired; the brook of Cedron sits, leaning on a bucket in a hollow, combing his bulrush hair, his shoulders covered by grass and water; he sings a cradle song to his little brooks, or drives them before him, etc.
But the most gifted poet of the set, and the most doughty opponent of Lohenstein's bombast, was the unhappy Christian Guenther.[[4]]
He vents his feelings in verse because he must. There is a foretaste of Goethe in his lyrics, poured put to free the soul from a burden, and melodious as if by accident. As we turn over the leaves of his book of songs, we find deep feeling for Nature mingled with his love and sorrows.[[5]]
Bethink you, flowers and trees and shades,