So wie die alte Eiche,
An allen Zweigen entlaubt,
Hoch auf dem waldigten Berge trauert;
Der sinkende Nebel verhüllt ihr Haupt:
So sass, umringt von finsterm Harme,
Ingwiomar, der greise Mann.
Likewise in Ossian we have an oak “clothed in mist”[303] and the comparison of a warrior to a “leafless oak.”[304] Compare also: “But now he is pale and withered like the oak.”[305] Ossian again and again arranges comparisons in exactly the manner we have here, i. e., the first member is followed by an independent sentence in the indicative mode. Take, e. g., such a passage as the following: “As rushes a stream of foam from the dark shady deep of Cromla ... Through the breaches of the tempest look forth the dim faces of ghosts. So fierce,” etc.[306] Likewise Ossianic is this scene (pp. 207–8):
... Wenn der Sturm der Nacht
Mit allen seinen Winden erwacht,
Die schwarze schlosende Wolke saust,
Der Wald mit allen Zweigen braust,
Der Donner brüllt, die Haide brüllt,
Das wilde Wasser rauschend schwillt,
Ueber die Felsen ins Thal sich giest, etc.,
as are also the following comparisons (p. 210):
Da fuhr hastig, mit blankem Schwert
Der Held hervor . . . . .
. . . . . . . . so fährt
Der schnelle Blitz . . . .
Herab aus finstern Gewittern.—
Von der Linken zur Rechten flog
Sein Schwert einen flammenden Kreis; da bog
Der Schwarm zurück, und Herman stand
Wie durchs Gewitter der Mond sich wand:
Einsamglänzend gebietet er.
Compare such expressions as “Ryno as lightning gleamed along,”[307] “brightened, like the full moon of heaven; when the clouds vanish away,”[308] “risen ... from battle, like a meteor from a stormy cloud,”[309] and the like.—The poem that follows, “Die Jägerin,” includes anacreontic as well as bardic elements, without containing anything specifically Ossianic. It has the ‘grove of oaks’ (p. 224), the ‘snowy breast’ (p. 232), the ‘Geist der Lieder’ (p. 229), the unavoidable echo (p. 227), and other bardic phrases that had by this time become quite common.
The last poem of the first volume is “Kleist,” in three cantos, which cannot be said to have been strongly influenced by Ossian, although the same old bardic paraphernalia of harps and spirits and the like are employed and occasional Ossianic reminders occur e. g., the expression (p. 259): “Ihrer Waffen Schein War furchtbar,” reminds us of Ossian’s “Terrible was the gleam of the steel,”[310] etc. We must again point out that although similar expressions occur also in Homer and elsewhere, Ossian served to intensify the impression. Kretschmann and most of the other bardic poets certainly knew their Ossian better than they did their Homer, and I think we can give Ossian the benefit of the doubt in most instances.—The figure of the stars trembling: “Da bebten die Sterne” (p. 259), also probably goes back to Ossian, as does the line “Thauvoll war sein Haar” (p. 259), with which compare, e. g., “Filled with dew are my locks.”[311]
In the second volume of Kretschmann’s works, which contains “Hymnen,” “Scherzhafte Lieder,” “Sinngedichte,” and a few other poems, there are but scattered signs of Ossian’s influence scarcely worthy of mention. Only in the “Anhang einiger kleinen Bardenlieder” do we find the bardic tendency more strongly pronounced and in consequence more frequent traces of Ossian. In the first of these bardic poems, “Die teutsche Schamhaftigkeit,” we have a “Mädchen, rabenschwarz von Haaren,”[312] but the comparison was a common one by this time and need not be referred to Ossian. In the one “An den ersten Weinstock” we have the echo once more (p. 230); likewise in “Das Traumgesicht” (p. 236). In the “Frühlingslied” the nightingale is called the bardic bird, “Du Bardenvogel Nachtigall” (p. 232), the expression no doubt going back to Klopstock’s Bardale.[313] In the same poem the bard lies on the moss in the cave of the rock (pp. 232–3), and we have the following Ossianic lines (p. 233):
Nur selten blinkte durch die Nebeldecken
Der späten Sonne Blick.
Compare Ossian’s “the sun looks through mist.”[314] In the last poem of the Anhang, “Das Traumgesicht,” the bardic character stands out more prominently than in any of the preceding ones. The very first line gives us “Zukunftspähende Druiden” (p. 236), and soon the ghost of the dreamer’s father hovers from the dark oaks (p. 237).—In all these bardic songs Gleim’s influence is distinctly noticeable. In the second stanza of the “Friedenslied” (p. 147), we have “tiefgestimmte Saiten,” whereas the original version in the Leipziger Musen Almanach for 1780 (p. 40) had “Distelumkränzte Saiten.”