Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79.
Henry Frauenlob
By Count Anton Alexander von Auersperg (Anastasius Grün) (18061876)I
And none but forms of sorrow, clad in mourning garbs, appear;
And only from the steeple sounds the death-bell’s sullen boom;
One street alone is crowded, and it leads but to the tomb.
Unto the minster comes a still and sorrowful array,—
The old man and the young, the child, and many a maiden fair;
And every eye is dim with tears, in every heart is care.
And to the rich high-altar steps with deadened chant draw near,
Where all around for saintly forms are dark escutcheons found,
With a cross of simple white displayed upon a raven ground.
The minstrel’s verdant coronet, his meed of song, is seen;
His golden harp, beside it laid, a feeble murmur flings,
As the evening wind sweeps sadly through its now forsaken strings.
Is some beloved monarch gone, that old and young look pale?
A king, in truth,—a king of song! and Frauenlob his name;
And thus in death his fatherland must celebrate his fame.
To women’s worth, did he on earth devote his deathless song;
And though the minstrel hath grown old, and faded be his frame,
They yet requite what he in life hath done for love and them.