was to follow with such increased fervour.

German literature too, in the seventeenth century, stood under the
sign manual of the Pigtail and Periwig; it was baroque, stilted,
bombastic, affected, feeling and form alike were forced, not
spontaneous. Verses were turned out by machinery and glued together.
Martin Opitz,[14] the recognized leader and king of poets, had
travelled far, but there is no distinct feeling for Nature in his
poetry. His words to a mountain:

'Nature has so arranged pleasure here, that he who takes the trouble
to climb thee is repaid by delight,' scarcely admit the inference
that he understood the charm of distance in the modern sense. He took
warmer interest in the bucolic side of country life; rhyming about
the delightful places, dwellings of peace, with their myrtles,
mountains, valleys, stones, and flowers, where he longed to be; and
his _Spring Song_, an obvious imitation of the classics (Horace's
_Beatus ille_ was his model for _Zlatna_), has this conventional
contrast between his heart and Nature.

'The frosty ice must melt; snow cannot last any longer, Favonius; the
gentle breeze is on the, fields again. Seed is growing vigorously,
grass greening in all its splendour, trees are budding, flowers
growing ...thou, too my heart, put off thy grief.'

There is more nostalgia than feeling for Nature in this:

'Ye birches and tall limes, waste places, woods and fields, farewell
to you!