Fly from sordid cares and the proud tumult of cities ... here in
the peaceful valley shy wisdom sports at ease, where the smiling
Muse crowns herself with dewy roses.

With this idyllic tone it is not surprising to find the religious
feeling of many hymn writers; for instance, Gleim in _The Goodness of
God_:

For whom did Thy goodness create the world so beautiful, O God?
For whom are the flowers on hill and dale? ... Thou gavest us
power to perceive the beauty.

And above all, honest Gellert:

The skies, the globe, the seas, praise the eternal glory. O my
Creator, when I consider Thy might and the wisdom of Thy ways....
Sunshine and storm preach Thee, and the sands of the sea.

Ewald von Kleist excelled Haller as much as Haller had excelled
Brockes.

Julian Schmidt says[3]: 'Later on, descriptive poetry, like didactic,
fell into disgrace; but at that time this dwelling upon the minutiæ
of Nature served to enrich the imagination; Kleist's descriptions are
thoughtful and interesting.' It is easy to see that his longer poems
cost him much labour; they were not the pure songs of feeling that
gush out spontaneously like a spring from the rock. But in eloquence
and keenness of observation he excelled his contemporaries, although
he, too, followed the fashion of eighteenth-century literature, and