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| 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, | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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. | 20 |
| |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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; | 30 |
| 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 | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| |
| 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 | 45 |
| 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, | 50 |
| Still the birds repeat the legend, | |
| And the name of Vogelweid. | |
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