If Guido Reni, or some Roman Catholic artist in the prime days of painting, had tricked up such a pretty pious picture as this with all the blandishments of light, shade, and colour, it might have passed; but in naked verse, and in these stern Protestant times, when nunneries are not so fashionable even in Catholic countries as they once were, such moon-light tinting is apt to appear sickly; and, what is worse, affected. It is well for Ludwig Uhland's reputation that he sometimes dips his brush in stonger and more healthy colours. Like his friend Justinus Kerner, of whom we shall speak anon, he deals too much in tears; but there is a sunshine behind them that charms away their sadness, and sometimes paints a rainbow upon their darkest showers. It is true also that there is something too much of the nun in most of his fair ones; but he sports and frisks so wantonly at times that we can hardly believe him in earnest. The man, we sometimes think, might have been a perfect Anacreon, had not the romantic atmosphere, which infected all Germany during his early years, tinged his poetic blossoms with a sort of meek primrose yellow. If we wrong him herein, he is too kind not to forgive us. Meanwhile we may add a specimen or two of his "Lieder."

THE POPPY.

Lo! where by west winds cradled
The sleepy blossom shines,
The flower that round the temples
Of dreamy Morpheus twines.
Now purple like the sun's blush,
In evening glory brief,

Now pale as if the Moon's beam
Were slumbering on its leaf.

I heard them say, and warn me
That who beneath it sleep,
Sink to the nether regions

Of heavy dreams and deep;
And when the dream hath left them,
In trance they still remain,

And all that near and dear be
Now strike their sense in vain.

When life was in its morning
I lay, sooth is my tale,
Amid a bed of flowers rich
Within a lovely vale.

So sweet they were, so fragrant,
That to my sense did seem
All living things a picture,
All real things a dream.
And since that hour my sleeping
A wakeful bliss I deem

The only life my picture,

The only truth my dream.
The fancies that mine eye sees,
As stars so bright be they;
O flower of poets, bloom thou
Amid my locks alway!

The sternest critic will not deny a certain delicate flower-like beauty to this poemetto. There is also (in the original at least) a certain simplicity and neatness in the phrase, which suits well with so gentle a theme. Take another specimen of a very simple feeling, very simply expressed.

TO

Upon a mountain's summit

There might I with thee stand,
And o'er the tufted forest,

Look down upon the land;
There might my finger show thee
The world in vernal shine,

And say if all mine own were

That all were mine and thine.

Into my bosom's deepness

O could thine eye but see

Where all the songs are sleeping
That God e'er gave to me!
There would thine eye perceive it

If aught of good be mine,

Although I may not name thee

That aught of good is thine.

What is this, gentle reader? a trifle doubtless, a very trifle.

The bard might have literally said "nos hæc novimus esse nihil," but then there is good feeling, and simplicity, and truth, and nature in it; and such is the might of these things that without them some sublime concoctor of epics shall make the battle of Armageddon be fought before our eyes, and Death on his pale horse stalk over us, and yet we shall remain unmoved. Here again is a spring song that has neither cuckoos nor zephyrs—a mere breathing, and yet it is true.

SPRING.

Sweet golden Spring, what bliss with thine,
What beauty may compare!

I might indite a song to thee,

Thou art so passing fair.

But though all men were born to work,

Why should I work to day?

Spring is the Sabbath of the world
Let me then rest and pray!

We have said that Uhland sometimes favours us with a conceit, and a small piece of pleasantry in verse. He has certainly more humour than he who, with such profound gravity, sung the pious ass grinning at the penitent potter, and the penitent potter grinning at the pious ass, but not much more. Here is a small hit at the critics, a set of men who have at no time been much in favour with the poets, much less with those of the Romantic school.

VERNAL CONTEMPLATION FOR A CRITIC.

Deem it not strange to see me here,
Amid the ramblers, young and old :
In spring-time one may walk abroad,
Without the fear of catching cold.

Here is a conceit :—

DEATH AND RESURRECTION.

In trance of love
I swooned away;
Within her arms
I buried lay.

She waked me gently

With a kiss;
Her eyes revealed

My heaven of bliss.

And here a small pleasantry :

HE AND SHE.

She.

Take heed how thou dost eye me thus,
Wherever thou dost find me ;

The sight, unless thou spare thine eyes,
With too much light may blind thee.

He.

Had'st thou not often looked about,
How could'st thou chance espy me?
Thy neck, unless thou use it well,

With turning round may wry be.

The purity and delicacy of feeling, the simplicity and nature of expression, characteristic of some of the above poems, at once recall to our mind the poetry of the Provençal Troubadours, and yet more of the Swabian Minnesingers. A great part of Uhland's poetry may, indeed, be looked upon as a regeneration of the poetry of the Minnesingers, and in this consists as well its peculiar excellency as its peculiar weakness: its excellency as an imitation of the past; its weakness in so far as it is not a healthy product of the present. The heroic valour of Taillefer, the martial impetuosity of Bertran de Born, the romantic lovelongings of Geoffrey Rudello, are all here restored to a poetic life, but chiefly the latter; for, as we have said, tenderness and delicacy characterize the genius of Uhland. It is the lovely only and the feminine of the middle ages that he has an eye for; its rugged strength, its burning, devastating fire, he either knew not, or, knowing, had not firmness to look upon. But this narrowness of view rendered him only the more fit to feel entirely that one element of the romantic poetry which he felt a peculiar vocation to venerate; had his genius been as broad, as masculine, and as comprehensive as Scott's, we should never perhaps have seen such delicate gems as the following:

THE STUDENT.

As I erst at Salamanca,

Studious read old Homer's tale,
In a cloister-garden early,

While sweet sang the nightingale ;
Read how Helen came in beauty,
Came arrayed in rich attire,
When on Priam's tower assembled,
Sate each ancient Trojan sire;
And so wondrous lovely seemed she,
That each bearded chief did say,
'Soothly such surpassing beauty
Came not forth from human clay!'
Thus I lay in studious musing,

What had chanced I scarce might know,

In the leaves I heard a rustling,

Quick I turned me round, when, lo!

On the neighbouring balcony,
Wondrous vision I did see,
One as fair as Trojan Helen,
And as richly clad as she;
And a graybeard was beside her,
And so kindly he did prate,
I might swear he was a Trojan,
Sitting by the Scæan gate.
And myself was an Achaian
Ever since that blessed day,
'Fore the garden-fort of beauty,
Thus in close besiege I lay.
And in simple phrase to say it,
Many summer evenings long,

Came I there to breathe my passion,

Came with lute and came with song;

Sang in many a gentle ditty,

Sang in many a tuneful sigh,

Till at last from lofty lattice,

Sweet came down the soft reply.

Thus for six fleet months conversed we,
Spake in song, in song replied;
Had her guardian's ears been open,
Even this had been denied.
Oft from sleepless pillow rose he,
Full of fancies, full of fears,
Deaf he might not hear our harping,
More than music of the spheres.
But one night-the night was stormy,
Dark and starless was the sky,
To my music's wonted question,
Sweet came down no soft reply.