Theodor Storm, like Friedrich Hebbel, is a child of the North Sea Plain; but while in Hebbel's verse there is hardly any direct reference to his native landscape, Storm again and again sings its chaste beauty; and while Hebbel could find a home away from his native heath, Storm clung to it with a jealous love. He was born in Husum (die graue Stadt am grauen Meer) on the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein, September 14, 1817, of well-to-do parents. While still a student of law, he published a first volume of verse together with Tycho and Theodor Mommsen. His favorite poets were Eichendorff and MÖrike, and the influence of the former is plainly discernible even in Storm's later verse. Storm left his home in 1851 and did not return until 1864, after Schleswig-Holstein had become German. He died July 4, 1888.

Storm is the poet of the North Sea Plain: he discovered its peculiar beauty. While the tragic note predominates, joy and humor nevertheless abound, and at the beginning of his poems Storm himself significantly placed his Oktoberlied, written in the political gloom and uncertainty of the fall of 1848. While realizing fully its inherent tragic elements, Storm loved and glorified life and thirstily drank in its beauty to the very last. This is the keynote of Storm's lyrics.

102.—21. DIE BLAUEN TAGE, azure days, i.e., days blue as the heavens in June.

103.—6. my heart is filled with joyous fright.

104.—2. STEIN, i.e., millstone.

8. PUK, Puck, an elfin spirit of mischief. Compare Shakspere, Midsummer Night's Dream.

105. The poet's tribute to his home city Husum, "die graue Stadt am grauen Meer."

13. FÜR UND FÜR, forever and ever.

107. In memory of the poet's sister.

8. RECHT GESCHWISTER, true brother and sister.

11 f. NOCH WEHT EIN KINDERFRIEDEN MICH AN, still a breath of childhood peace comes to me.

108.—18. PFINGSTGLOCKEN; Pfingsten, Pentecost, is celebrated as a summer festival. In Northern Germany house doors are wreathed with birch twigs, while young birch trees are placed upright on the wings of the numerous windmills.

109.—6. MIR IST, etc., I feel (full of life) like, etc.

110.—1. VIVAT, Latin, long may he live, render hurrah!

111.—8. what otherwise would be honorable.

112. Storm has used the same motif in Immensee.

113.—7. SCHLAG, i.e., pulsation (beat) of pain.