With hardly an exception the love lyrics are mere imitations of French models; their style is as artificial as their feeling; and they give little promise of the work that was to come from the same hand a few years later.

As the expression of one of his lover's moods, one of them, reckoned the best in the collection, may here be given.

It is entitled _Die schoene Nacht_.
[Footnote 41: Nine of these _Lieder_ Goethe thought worthy of a permanent place in his collected works.] DIE SCHOeNE NACHT.
Nun verlass' ich diese Huette, Meiner Liebsten Aufenthalt; Wandle mit verhuelltem Schritte Durch den oeden, finstern Wald.
Luna bricht durch Busch und Eichen, Zephyr meldet ihren Lauf; Und die Birken streun mit Neigen Ihr den suessten Weihrauch auf.
Wie ergoetz' ich mich im Kuehlen Dieser schoenen Sommernacht! O wie still ist hier zu fuehlen Was die Seele gluecklich macht! Laesst sich kaum die Wonne fassen, Und doch wollt' ich, Himmel! dir Tausend solcher Naechte lassen, Gaeb' mein Maedchen Eine mir.
THE BEAUTIFUL NIGHT.
Now I leave the cot behind me Where my love hath her abode; And I wander with veiled footsteps Through the drear and darksome wood.
Luna's rays pierce oak and thicket Zephyr heraldeth her way; And for her its sweetest incense Sheddeth every birchen spray.
How I revel in the coolness Of this beauteous summer night! Ah! how peaceful here the feeling Of what makes the soul's delight, Bliss wellnigh past comprehending! Yet, O Heaven, I would to thee Thousand nights like this surrender, Gave my maiden one to me.
But it is in the two plays produced during this period that Goethe most fully reveals both his literary ideals and the essential traits of his own character.

The first of the two, _Die Laune des Verliebten_ ("The Lover's Caprices"), is based on his own relations to Kaethchen Schoenkopf, and is cast in the form of a pastoral drama, written in Alexandrines after the fashion of the time.[42] The theme is a satire on his own wayward conduct towards Kaethchen, as he has depicted it in his Autobiography.

The plot is of the simplest kind.