Besides numerous translations, Opitz edited (1639) "Das Annolied", a Middle High German poem of the end of the 11th century, and thus preserved it from oblivion since the original manuscript is now lost. Opitz also wrote a pastoral novel, "Schäferei der Nymphe Hercinie" (The Idyll of the Nymph Hercinie, 1630).

It was also at Tribschen that he composed his "Siegfried Idyll" as a birthday gift to his second wife, Cosima, who had recently given birth to the couple's first legitimate child, a son Siegfried.

The "Siegfried Idyll" was performed for the first time on Christmas morning, 25 December 1870, by an ensemble of fifteen players (among them Richter, Ruhoff, Rauchenecker and Kahl) on the stairs of the villa. It was a birthday present for Cosima; she had turned 33 the previous day, 24 December, but she always celebrated her birthday on Christmas Day.

He also translated from German, e.g., Goethe's idyll of "Hermann and Dorothea".

Eventually, Nao's idyll is shattered shortly after his coming-of-age, when a terran company, 'Texec', supported by new colonial policies back on Earth, decides to use Aquablue as a location for special power plants feeding on the ocean's warmth.

Her first novel, "Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll", was published in 1898.