And when Chrimhild, the queen, gave him kisses fifty

two,

With his rough and grisly beard full sore he made her

rue,

That from her lovely cheek 'gan flow the rosy blood: The queen was full of sorrow, but the monk it thought him good.

From the Heldenbuch. Tr. H. Weber.

A

THE RICHEST PRINCE.

LL their wealth and vast possessions
Vaunting high in choicest terms,

Sat the German princes feasting
In the knightly hall of Worms.

"Mighty," cried the Saxon ruler,
"Are the wealth and power I wield:
In my country's mountain gorges
Sparkling silver lies concealed."

"See my land with plenty glowing,"
Quoth the Palsgrave of the Rhine;
"Beauteous harvests in the valleys,
On the mountains noble wine."

Spacious towns and wealthy convents,"
Lewis spake, Bavaria's lord,

"Make my land to yield me treasures

Great as those your fields afford."

Würtemberg's belovéd monarch,
Eberhard the Bearded, cried :

66

See, my land hath little cities,
'Mong my hills no metals bide;

"Yet one treasure it hath borne me,
Sleeping in the woodland free,
I may lay my head in safety
On my lowliest vassal's knee."

Then, as with a single utterance,

Cried aloud those princes three: "Bearded count, thy land hath jewels! Thou art wealthier far than we!"

Andreas Justinus Kerner. Tr. H. W. Dulcken.

Würtemberg.

WÜRTEMBERG.

WELL: you shall hear a simple tale:

One night I lost my way

Within a wood, along a vale,

And down to sleep I lay.

And there I dreamed that I was dead,
And funeral lamps were shining
With silver lustre round my head,
Within a vault reclining.

And men and women stood beside
My cold, sepulchral bed;

And, shedding many tears, they cried,
"Duke Eberhard is dead!”

A tear upon my face fell down,
And, waking with a start,

I found my heart was resting on
A Würtembergian heart!

A woodman, mid the forest-shade,
Had found me in my rest,
Had lifted up my head, and laid
It softly on his breast!

The princes sat, and wondering heard,
Then said, as closed the story,
"Long live the good Duke Eberhard,
His people's love his glory?"

From the German. Tr. R. Harrison.

Würtzburg.

WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID.

VOGELWEID 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;

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 Vogelweid.

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 noontiae,
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 Vogelweid.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.