same age there appeared popular hero-ballads and national epics entirely distinct from the effusions of the courtier-like Minnesingers. The old heroic poetry banished from the mead-halls of kings and barons had taken refuge in the gatherings of the common folk. The minstrels, once the companions of rulers, had been compelled to wander from city to city, and from village to village, entertaining the crowds at fairs and market-places. The Minnesingers, ministering to the entertainment of the ladies of the castle, chose personal themes and treated them in sentimental style.

CONRAD VON KIRCHBERG.

COUNT CONRAD VON KIRCHBERG was a Suabian, who lived in the latter part of the twelfth century. The following is the best of his songs.

May, sweet May, again is come,

May that frees the land from gloom;
Children, children, up and see
All her stores of jollity.

On the laughing hedgerow's side
She hath spread her treasures wide;
She is in the greenwood shade,
Where the nightingale hath made
Every branch and every tree

Ring with her sweet melody;

Hill and dale are May's own treasures.
Youths rejoice! In sportive measures
Sing ye! join the chorus gay!
Hail this merry, merry May!

Up, then, children! we will go
Where the blooming roses grow;
In a joyful company

We the bursting flowers will see;
Up, your festal dress prepare!
Where gay hearts are meeting, there
May hath pleasures most inviting,
Heart and sight and ear delighting.
Listen to the birds' sweet song.
Hark, how soft it floats along!

Courtly dames our pleasures share!
Never saw I May so fair;
Therefore dancing will we go.

Youths, rejoice! the flowerets blow!
Sing ye! join the chorus gay!

Hail this merry, merry May!

Our manly youths,-where are they now? Bid them up and with us go

To the sporters on the plain;

Bid adieu to care and pain

Now, thou pale and wounded lover!
Thou thy peace shalt soon recover.
Many a laughing lip and eye
Speaks the light heart's gayety;
Lovely flowers around we find,
In the smiling verdure twined,
Richly steeped in May-dew's glowing.
Youths rejoice! the flowers are blowing!
Sing ye, join the chorus gay!
Hail this merry, merry May!

WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE.

BORN about 1160 in Tyrol, and wandering in manhood from the Adriatic to the Baltic, Walther von der Vogelweide was the highest type of the Minnesinger. He was a welcome guest at the courts of emperors, dukes and landgraves, but he preserved a noble independence amid all the vicissitudes of a turbulent time. He acquired not only wide experience of the world, social and political, but a lofty genuine patriotism not limited to a small principality, but embracing the whole German race. In his conception of love this grand poet was true to the nobler ideas of that race. He regarded it not as the fleeting passion of a day or a season, but as the life-long devotion of two hearts to each other. In style he shows the gracefulness of the Troubadour, but he does not sacrifice truth to form or artificial rules. His songs express a natural purity as well as a vehemence of passion. This truthfulness renders them readable when the sweetness of minor poets cloys the taste. He avoids wearisome detail and a multiplicity of figures, but dashes off in a happy phrase a truthful portrait or a memorable incident. The decline of the Minnesingers may be dated from the death of their greatest representative in 1227.

A LAMENT.

Ан! my best years have fled away,
Like dreams, or like a minstrel's lay;
I see, once more, my native ground,
And wonder as I look around;
For now I see a stranger here,
Where many faces once were dear:
My playmates all are gray and old;
The land itself seems drear and cold:
They've felled the trees on yonder hill;
The river flows beside it still;
But my best years have passed away
As on the sea the drops of spray,

Or like the waves upon the shore

Time, like the earth with flowers bespread
In youthful spring, is dark and dead
When age and cares are coming on,
And friends and pleasures all are gone.

One consolation now remains-
To combat on the holy plains,
Not for riches, nor renown,
But for an everlasting crown;
For absolution, for release

From all my sins; for rest and peace.
May I but tread that sacred shore!
Then will I say "Alas" no more!

TO THE LADIES OF GERMANY.

THIS song is supposed to have been written by Walther return from an embassy to France in 1201.

YE should bid me welcome, ladies,

For my word is now to you,
All that ye have heard before this
Is but empty vain halloo.
But ye should reward me nobly;
If my recompense is right,

I can tell you what will please you;
Help me then with all your might.

I will tell to German maidens

Such a word that all the more
They shall delight the universe,
And I will ask slight pay therefor.
What then shall I ask in payment?
They are all so good, so dear,
That my earnest prayer is lowly :
Let them give me welcome cheer.

Many lands I've wandered over;
From their glories I have come.
Ill would sure befall the rover,

Should I rest afar from home.
What true pleasure could I ever
Have in foreign court or hall?
What avails me to seek falsehood?
German truth surpasses all.

From the Elbe west to the Rhineland,

And back again to Hungary's plain,

These are still of lands the fairest
That in all the world remain.
Furthermore, I swear by Heaven,
That in person, mien and grace,
Fairer than all other ladies

German ladies take their place.

WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH.

WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH holds an honorable place among mediæval poets. He was a knight of Bavaria, and died in 1220, being about sixty years of age. Although the form of his work is marked by the characteristics of his period, there is a tone in his poetry which seems essentially modern. While thoroughly Christian in spirit, he does not yield entirely to the churchly and ascetic ideas then prevalent. He holds stoutly to the primitive ideals of a German warrior. He recognizes the virtues of the heathen, the manliness of sport and war, and the love of adventure. The Arthurian legend had been diffused through Europe, and Wolfram took as his chief hero Parzival, the Christian knight, and for his theme the quest of the Holy Grail. Yet he does not treat this famous mediæval allegory in a mechanical spirit. He dwells upon the development of the perfect knight from the erring man, and shows how his own experience of evil was necessary, as well as early and late instructions, to make him fit for his selfimposed task and its glorious accomplishment. In Titurel he went back to a still earlier period, yet without much change of characters.

THE BELOVED LADY.

WOULD I the lofty spirit melt

Of that proud dame who dwells so high,

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