the splashing of the fountain; here he was grounded in the strong and pious, if somewhat narrow, Catholicism of his race.  It was a Catholicism, however, which was genuinely Romantic in that it sought comfort in sorrow directly from nature, a tendency which gives rise to some of the best and most heartfelt religious poetry in German literature.  A fine example of this is to be found in Eichendorff’s beautiful poems on the death of his child.  It is interesting to see how, in this spiritual poetry, there is a constant melting of nature into religion, a dissolving of the Romantic atmosphere, of that youthful fervor which Eichendorff never really outgrew but continued to draw upon for inspiration for all his later work, into a broad, deep, manly piety.

Eichendorff’s poetry began with Tieckian notes; it was influenced by Brentano, and, unfortunately, was colored by the productions of Count Otto von Loeben (1786-1825), a pseudo-Romanticist of less than mediocre ability.  But Eichendorff’s individuality, with its constant accentuation of the acoustic, soon made itself felt and brought into German poetry what Tieck had tried for and failed in—­an effect of perfect musical synthesis.  The melody of the verse receives a peculiar lilt by frequent changes in metre between stanzas or in the midst of the stanza, and is thus saved from monotony.  Were its metrical harmony tiring in any way, it could not have been set to music with such surprising success.  As it is, Eichendorff’s poetry has become a permanent part of the musical life of the nation. The Broken Ring has passed into a folk-song, and "O valleys wide!" with Mendelssohn’s music is a popular choral of deep religious import.

Yet Eichendorff does not attract either by the variety of his themes or of his rhymes.  It is his very repetitions which so endear him to the popular heart.  His is not passionate poetry, nor does it subjectively portray the soul-life of its author.  In fact, it is saved from monotony of content at times only by its extreme honesty and its lovable simplicity.  There is none of Goethe’s power of suggesting landscape in a few touches, none of Goethe’s logic of description, none of Goethe’s clear inner objectivity, but a certain haze lies over Eichendorff’s landscapes—­the haze of a lyric Corot; at the same time, this landscape has the power of suggestion to the German mind.  Paul Heyse, himself a poet, makes one of his characters say, “I have always carried Eichendorff Is book of songs with me on my travels.  Whenever a feeling of strangeness comes over me in the variegated days, or I feel a longing for home, I turn its leaves and am at home again.  None of our poets has the same magic reminiscence of home which captures our hearts with such touching monotony, with so few pictures and notes. * * * He is always new, as the voices of Nature itself, and never oppresses, but rather lulls one to sweet dreams as if a mother were singing her child to sleep.”