Henry Frauenlob

In Mentz 't is hushed and lonely, the streets are waste
and drear,
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.

And as the echo from the tower grows faint and dies
away.
Unto the minster comes a still and sorrowful array,—
The old man and the young, the child, and many a
maiden fair;
Aud every eye is dim with tears, in every heart is care.
Six virgins in the centre bear a coffin and a bier,
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.

And, placed that raven pall above, a laurel-garland
green,
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.

Who rests within his coffin there? For whom this
general wail?
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.

Unto the fairest flowers of heaven that bloom this earth
along,
To women's worth, did he on earth devote his deatliless
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.