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)

212 MINNESINGERS.

was detained somewhere on his journey home,—at
all events it was after a long absence, and in his old
age, that he returned to his native land. The feelings
with which he revisited the scenes of his youth are
pathetically expressed in a plaintive song, which
commences thus :—

Ah! where are hours departed fled ?

Is life a dream, or true indeed ?
Did all my heart hath fashioned

From fancy's visitings proceed ?
Yes ! I have slept; and now unknown

To me the things best known before :
The land, the people, once mine own,

Where are they ?—they are here no more:
My boyhood's friends, all aged, worn,

Despoil'd the woods, the fields, of home,
Only the stream flows on forlorn;

(Alas ! that e'er such change should come!)
And he who knew me once so well

Salutes me now as one estranged :
The very earth to me can tell

Of nought but things perverted, changed :
And when I muse on other days,

That pass'd me as the dashing oars
The surface of the ocean raise,

Ceaseless my heart its fate deplores ; &c.

The poet concludes his song by lamenting that cir-