FERDINAND FREILIGRATH (1810-1876) gained immediate fame with the brilliant color and tropical exuberance of his early oriental lyrics, of which the much-declaimed Lion’s Ride is an excellent example.  But Freiligrath’s strongest work was in the field of political poetry.  He, too, made sacrifices for the faith that was in him; he gave up a royal pension and twice went into voluntary exile in order to be free to express his liberal sentiments.  He began, indeed, with the denial of any partisan bias; but when the Revolution of 1848 broke, no other poet found more daring and eloquent words for the spirit of revolt and of democratic enthusiasm than Freiligrath.  And when the war of 1870 again brought new hope of German unity, Freiligrath sang in stirring measures this national awakening.

GEORG HERWEGH (1817-1875), also driven into exile by his opposition to the government, created a sensation with his Poems of the Living (1841), which in ringing refrains incited to revolutionary action.  But when the deed followed the word, and Herwegh led an invading column of laborers into Baden in 1848, he lacked the courage of the martyr and fled from the peril of death. GOTTFRIED KINKEL (1815-1882) also took part in the insurrection in Baden, was captured, and condemned to life imprisonment, but escaped with the aid of Carl Schurz in 1850.  FRANZ DINGELSTEDT (1814-1881), on the other hand, found his sarcastic Songs of a Political Night-Watchman (1842) no bar to appointment as director of the theatres of Munich, Weimar and Vienna.

While the poets of the revolution were busily at work, the conservatives were not altogether voiceless; nor were the notes of the romantic lyric silenced.  Indeed, men like Hoffmann, Herwegh, and Kinkel could not deny the strong influence of the romantic motives and tones upon much of their best poetry.  One lyrist greater than any of them was dominated by the romantic tradition—­an Austrian nobleman of mingled German, Slavonic and Hungarian blood, NIKOLAUS LENAU (the pen-name of Nikolaus Franz Niembsch Edler von Strehlenau, 1802-1850).  A gifted musician, Lenau was also a master of the melody of words, and his nature-feeling was unusually deep and true.  Abnormally proud, self-centred and sensitive as he was, Lenau was born to unhappiness and disillusionment; his journey to America, begun with the most generous anticipations, ended in homesickness and bitter disappointment.  Before he had reached middle life, his genius went out in the darkness of insanity.  The picturesque and the tragic fascinated Lenau; he could sing with genuine sympathy the fate of dismembered Poland, or the lawless freedom of Hungarian rebels and gipsies; but for the great political movements of the day he had little regard.  In the melodious interpretation of nature in sad and quiet moods he had no rival.

Very different was the wholesome and chivalrous nature of the young Moravian Count MORITZ VON STRACHWITZ (1822-1847), whose ballads are unmatched in German literature for spirit and fire.  Strachwitz despised the democratic agitation of the revolutionists, and sang with fine enthusiasm the coming of the strong man, who, after all the intrigues of the demagogues, like another Alexander should cut the Gordian knot with the sword.