Ja, dann seyd ihr vor mir, Wälder mit seufzenden
Tannen! bist du vor mir, sprudelnder Erlenbach!
Und ihr Teiche voll Schilfes!
Von dem kühlenden West’ umrauscht.
The autumn, the darkening evening, the lonely wanderer in the grove and on the heath, the sighing pines, “the breeze in the reeds of the lake,”[254] combine to form an ideal Ossianic picture. More of the same kind is found in the poem.—“Der Strahl aus Osten” referring to the sun, as employed in the next poem, “Auf das Haupt der Starken bei den Markmännern” (p. 180) is undoubtedly Ossian’s “beam of the east.”[255]
In a poem addressed to Gleim, “Auf den Bardenführer der Brennenheere,” Denis refers to his translation of Ossian and to the favorable reception accorded it by Gleim (p. 186):
Ossians erhabne
Lieder nachzustimmen
Rang es,[256] und errang mir einen Gleim.
On pp. 189–90 we read:
Aber du, Gespielinn
Meiner Lieder, Harfe!
Theuer bist du mir,
Seit du mir mit Morvens
Neugeweckten Klängen
Dieses Mannes Herz gewonnen hast.
“An Friedrichs Barden” (Ramler) breathes the bardic spirit more intensely than some of the others we have been considering. When Denis calls ‘Thaten’ ‘Flammen’ (p. 191), we recall Ossian’s “Our deeds are streams of light.”[257] Denis’s druids dwell in caves, as they do in Ossian. “Druiden locket er hervor Aus ihrer Höhle,” he sings (p. 195) in “An den Oberbarden der Pleisse” (Weisse) and so Ossian addresses the druid as the “dweller of the rock.”[258]
The next song is addressed “An den Beredtesten der Donaudruiden” (Ignaz Wurz). The word ‘schwellen’ in the expression “Thränen Schwellen in ... Augen” (p. 199) no doubt goes back to Ossian; compare “Dar–Thula,” p. 286, l. 17: “Tears swell in her ... eyes!” Denis uses the word frequently in other connections.[259]
Kretschmann’s poem, “Rhingulphs Lied an Sined,” which follows, is answered by Denis in “Sineds Gesicht, Rhingulphen dem Freunde der Geister gewidmet,” a poem teeming with Ossianic properties, the ghosts playing an especially prominent part. Intensely Ossianic is the following comparison (p. 207):