Taylor, Edgar [Hrsg.]; Austin, Sarah [Hrsg.]: Lays of the minnesingers or German troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: Illustr. by specimens of the contemporary lyric poetry of Provence and other parts of Europe ; With histor. and crit. notes, and engravings from the ms. of the minnesingers in the king's library at Paris, and from other sources (London, 1825)

206 MINNESINGERS.

Upon the distant plain they're springing,
Where beauteously their heads they rear,
And birds their sweetest songs are singing:
Come! let us go and pluck them there!"

She took the beauteous wreath I chose,
And like a child at praises glowing,
Her cheeks blush'd crimson as the rose
When by the snow-white lily growing :
But all from those bright eyes eclipse
Receiv'd ; and then, my toil to pay,
Kind, precious words fell from her lips :
What more than this I shall not say.

The following piece opens in Walter's best style.
The conclusion is rather of a whimsical character,
and is followed in the original by another stanza,
containing a moral, or interpretation, which the trans-
lator has found above his capacity to comprehend.

Do der sumer komen was,
Und die bluomen dur das gras
Wunneklich entsprungen,
Und die vogel sungen, &c.

'Twas summer,—through the opening grass

The joyous flowers upsprang,
The birds in all their difF'rent tribes

Loud in the woodlands sang: