Thou hast been their friend;

They, alas! have left thee friendless!

Yet at least by one warm fireside
Art thou welcome.

And, as swallows build

In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,
So thy twittering songs shall nestle
In my bosom,-

Quiet close and warm,

Sheltered from ail molestation,

And recalling by their voices

Youth and travel.

VOGELWEIDE the Minnesinger,

When he left this world of ours,

Laid his body in the cloister,

Under Würtzburg's minster towers.

And he gave the monks his treasures,
Gave them all with this behest:

They should feed the birds at noontide

Daily on his place of rest;

WALTER VON DER VOGELWEIDE. 127

Saying, "From these wandering minstrels I have learned the art of song;

Let me now repay the lessons

They have taught so well and long."

Thus the bard of love departed;

And, fulfilling his desire,

On his tomb the birds were feasted
By the children of the choir.

Day by day, o'er tower and turret,
In foul weather and in fair,
Day by day, in vaster numbers,

Flocked the poets of the air.

On the tree whose heavy branches
Overshadowed all the place,

On the pavement, on the tombstone,
On the poet's sculptured face,

On the cross-bars of each window,
On the lintel of each door,
They renewed the War of Wartburg,
Which the bard had fought before.

There they sang their merry carols,
Sang their lauds on every side;

And the name their voices uttered

Was the name of Vogelweide.

Till at length the portly abbot

Murmured, "Why this waste of food? Be it changed to loaves henceforward For our fasting brotherhood."

Then in vain o'er tower and turret,

From the walls and woodland nests, When the minster bells rang noontide, Gathered the unwelcome guests.

Then in vain, with cries discordant,
Clamorous round the Gothic spire,
Screamed the feathered Minnesingers
For the children of the choir.

Time has long effaced the inscriptions
On the cloister's funeral stones,

And tradition only tells us

Where repose the poet's bones.

But around the vast cathedral,

By sweet echoes multiplied,

Still the birds repeat the legend,

And the name of Vogelweide.

COME, old friend! sit down and listen!

From the pitcher, placed between us,

How the waters laugh and glisten
In the head of old Silenus!

Old Silenus, bloated, drunken,

Led by his inebriate Satyrs;

On his breast his head is sunken,
Vacantly he leers and chatters.

Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow;
Ivy crowns that brow supernal,

As the forehead of Apollo,

And possessing youth eternal.

R