among the Roman elegists and later epic poets that we meet a feeling
for Nature which can be compared to his. Like all the poets of this
late period, his verse lacks form, is rugged and pompous, moving upon
the stilts of classic reminiscences, and coining monstrous new
expressions for itself; but its feeling is always sincere. It was the
last gleam of a setting sun of literature that fell upon this one
beneficent figure. He was born in the district of Treviso near
Venice, and crossed the Alps a little before the great Lombard
invasion, while the Merovingians, following in the steps of Chlodwig,
were outdoing each other in bloodshed and cruelty. In the midst of
this hard time Fortunatus stood out alone among the poets by virtue
of his talent and purity of character. His poems are often disfigured
by bombast, prolixity, and misplaced learning; but his keen eye for
men and things is undeniable, and his feeling for Nature shews not
only in dealing with scenery, but in linking it with the inner life.

The lover's wish in _On Virginity_,[34] one of his longer poems,
suggests the Volkslieder:

O that I too might go, if my hurrying foot could poise amid the
lights of heaven and hold on its starry course. But now, without
thee, night comes drearily with its dark wings, and the day
itself and the glittering sunshine is darkness to me. Lily,
narcissus, violet, rose, nard, amomum, bring me no joy--nay, no
flower delights my heart. That I may see thee, I pass hovering
through each cloud, and my love teaches my wandering eyes to
pierce the mist, and lo! in dread fear I ask the stormy winds
what they have to tell me of my lord. Before thy feet I long to
wash the pavement, and with my hair to sweep thy temples.
Whatever it be, I will bear it; all hard things are sweet; if