In the ecstasy of his feeling Rosalind's lover wants to have her name
carved on every tree in the forest; but usually the lover assumes that
all things in the forests, plants or animals, sympathize with him even
without having his beloved's name thrust upon them.
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or if they sing, 't is with so dull a cheer,
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.
"Why are the roses so pale?" asks Heine.
"Why are the violets so dumb in the green grass? Why does
the lark's song seem so sad, and why have the flowers lost
their fragrance? Why does the sun look down upon the meadows
so cold and morose, and why is the earth so gray and
desolate? Why am I ill and melancholy, and why, my love, did
you leave me?"
In another poem Heine declares:
"If the flowers knew how deeply my heart is wounded,
they would weep with me. If the nightingales knew how
sad I am, they would cheer me with their refreshing
song. If the golden stars knew my grief, they would
come down from their heights to whisper consolation to
me."
This phase of amorous hyperbole also was known to the ancient poets.
Theocritus (VII., 74) relates that Daphnis was bewailed by the oaks
that stood on the banks of the river, and Ovid (151) tells us, in
Sappho's epistle to Phaon, that the leafless branches sighed over her
hopeless love and the birds stopped their sweet song. Musaeus felt
that the waters of the Hellespont were still lamenting the fate which
overtook Leander as he swam toward the tower of Hero.