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, Saying, "From these wandering minstrels Let me now repay the lessons They have taught so well and long." Thus the bard of love departed; On his tomb the birds were feasted Day by day, o'er tower and turret, On the tree whose heavy branches On the pavement, on the tombstone, 1 WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID. On the cross-bars of each window, There they sang their merry carols, Till at length the portly abbot Then in vain o'er tower and turret, Then in vain, with cries discordant, Time has long effaced the inscriptions And tradition only tells us Where repose the poet's bones. But around the vast cathedral, And the name of Vogelweid. (1) Walter von der Vogelweid, or Bird-Meadow, was one of the principal Minnesingers of the thirteenth century. He triumphed over Heinrich von Ofterdingen in that poetic contest at Wartburg Castle, known in literary history as the War of Wartburg. DRINKING SONG. How the waters laugh and glisten Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow; As the forehead of Apollo, And possessing youth eternal. Round about him, fair Bacchantes, Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses, Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante's Vineyards, sing delirious verses. Thus he won, through all the nations, Bloodless victories, and the farmer Bore, as trophies and oblations, Vines for banners, ploughs for armor. Judged by no o'erzealous rigor, Much this mystic throng expresses : Bacchus was the type of vigor, And Silenus of excesses. These are ancient ethnic revels, Now to rivulets from the mountains Point the rods of fortune-tellers; Youth perpetual dwells in fountains,Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars. Claudius, though he sang of flagons And huge tankards filled with Rhenish, From that fiery blood of dragons Never would his own replenish. Even Redi, though he chaunted Then with water fill the pitcher Wreathed about with classic fables; Ne'er Falernian threw a richer Come, old friend, sit down and listen! |