O could I but have found forget-me-not in the Valley, And roses beside it! Then had I plaited thee In fragrant blossoms the garland for this New Year, Which is still brighter to me than that of our Marriage was.
I grumble, in truth, that the cold North now governs us, And every flowret's bud is freezing in the cold earth! Yet one thing does not freeze, I mean my loving heart; Thine that is, and shares with thee its joys and sorrows.[58]
_'O hätt ich doch im Thal Vergissmeinnicht gefunden Und Rosen nebenbei! Dann hat' ich Dir gewunden In Blüthenduft den Kranz zu diesem neuen Jahr, Der schöner noch als der am Hochzeittage war._
_Ich zürne, traun, dass itzt der kalte Nord regieret, Und jedes Blümchens Keim in kalter Erde frieret! Doch eines frieret nicht, es ist mein liebend Herz;_ Dein _ist es, theilt mit Dir die Freuden und den Schmerz.'_]
'The Seven-Years War threw the young Wife into manifold anxiety and agitation; especially since she had become a Mother, and in fear for the life of her tenderly-loved Husband, had to tremble for the Father of her children too. To this circumstance Christophine ascribes, certainly with some ground, the world-important fact that her Brother had a much weaker constitution than herself. He had in fact been almost born in a camp. In late Autumn 1759, the Infantry Regiment of Major-General Romann, in which Caspar Schiller was then a Lieutenant, had, for sake of the Autumn Manoeuvres of the Würtemberg Soldiery, taken Camp in its native region. The Mother had thereupon set out from Marbach to visit her long-absent Husband in the Camp; and it was in his tent that she felt the first symptoms of her travail. She rapidly hastened back to Marbach; and by good luck still reached her Father's house in the Market-Place there, near by the great Fountain; where she, on the 11th November, was delivered of a Boy. For almost four years the little Friedrich with Christophine and Mother continued in the house of the well-contented Grandparents (who had not yet fallen poor), under her exclusive care. With self-sacrificing love and careful fidelity, she nursed her little Boy; whose tender body had to suffer not only from the common ailments of children, but was heavily visited with fits of cramp. In a beautiful region, on the bosom of a tender Mother, and in these first years far from the oversight of a rigorous Father, the Child grew up, and unfolded himself under cheerful and harmonious impressions.