and it is demonstrable that improvised quatrains give a situation, and so group themselves into a little poem; Meyer[[1043]] quotes such a song of two stanzas which has been made in this way, and yet could be easily foisted upon Eichendorff or some poet of the sort:—
My lover has come,
And what did he bring?
For the evening a kiss,
For my finger a ring.
The ring it is broken,
The love is all gone,
And out of the window
The kisses have flown.[[1044]]
A little more circumstance, a touch of nature, a touch or two of art, and out of the question and answer in improvised quatrains comes a ballad, with the help of that neglected but so unjustly neglected refrain, for which notice has been demanded already as for an important communal element in poetry. So one might guess the origins of the pretty ballad of the sickle:[[1045]] given a traditional refrain of the reapers, and a couple of schnaderhüpfl improvised in the familiar strain of question and answer, and why not such a poem?