S 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; 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, On the cross-bars of each window, On the lintel of each door, They renewed the War of Wartburg, 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, 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, DRINKING SONG. INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER. COME, old friend! sit down and listen! Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, Vacantly he leers and chatters. Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow; 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, Vines for banners, ploughs for armour. Judged by no o'erzealous rigour, Much this mystic throng expresses: Bacchus was the type of vigour, |