Where glooms the mere of old,
There lieth deeply sunken
A proud rich crown of gold:
Though in it gleam at nightfall
Carbuncle and sapphire,
Since ages grey it lies there,
To seek it none desire.
In his neighbouring Switzerland the poet seems to see the image of his ideal freedom, modest and self-respecting; founded on the laws of decency and order; possessing its ancient charters and title-deeds; no ephemeral offspring of democratic chaos; a gentle and serene goddess of justice holding the exact balance between despotism and universal suffrage. Such freedom as this, in many grand patriotic strains, he desires for Würtemberg—a country whose praises he enumerates in soil, products, climate, scenery, and manners, only lamenting one want, without which it would be a paradise, the want of “Good Right.” He is certainly justified in his praise of his country, which, with the Grand-Duchy of Baden, forms a corner in the map of Europe which is a garden of fertility, a museum of antiquities, and a labyrinth of natural grandeur; but we question whether Uhland is not over-sensitive as to its political misery.
When we pass from his ‘Songs of Freedom’ to his ‘Songs of the Affections,’ we find the same moderation and purity of sentiment. Uhland always seems afraid of saying too much. His exquisite taste is a constant check upon him. He leaves the lines of his sketches to speak for themselves, and shrinks from too much elaboration. The imaginative reader may, if he pleases, supply for himself much of the inessential detail. What a picture of a bashful old-world lover he gives us in his poem called ‘Resolution!’