Part 11 (1/2)

A lady says to a falcon:

You happy falcon you! You fly whither you will!

And choose the tree you like in the wood.

I have done the same. I chose a husband For myself, whom my eyes chose.

So 'tis fitting for beautiful women.

In winter he complains:

Alas for summer delight! The birds' song has disappeared with the leaves of the lime. Time has changed, the nightingales are dumb.

They have given up their sweet song and the wood has faded from above.

Uhland's beautiful motive in _Spring Faith_, that light and hope will come back to the oppressed heart with the flowers and the green, is given, though stiffly and dimly, by Heinrich von Veldegge:

I have some delightful news; the flowers are sprouting on the heath, the birds singing in the wood. Where snow lay before, there is now green clover, bedewed in the morning. Who will may enjoy it. No one forces me to, I am not free from cares.

and elsewhere:

At the time when flowers and gra.s.s come to us, all that made my heart sad will be made good again.

The loss of the beauty of summer makes him sad:

Since the bright sunlight has changed to cold, and the little birds have left off singing their song, and cold nights have faded the foliage of the lime, my heart is sad.

Ulrich von Guotenberg makes a pretty comparison:

She is my summer joy, she sows flowers and clover In my heart's meadow, whence I, whate'er befall, Must teem with richer bliss: the light of her eyes Makes me bloom, as the hot sun the dripping trees....

Her fair salute, her mild command Softly inclining, make May rain drop down into my heart.

Heinrich von Rugge laments winter:

The dear nightingale too has forgotten how beautifully she sang ... the birds are mourning everywhere.

and longs for summer:

I always craved blissful days.... I liked to hear the little birds' delightful songs. Winter cannot but be hard and immeasurably long. I should be glad if it would pa.s.s away.

Heinrich von Morungen:

How did you get into my heart?

It must ever be the same with me.

As the noon receives her light from the sun, So the glance of your bright eyes, when you leave me, Sinks into my heart.

He calls his love his light of May, his Easter Day:

She is my sweetheart, a sweet May Bringing delights, a suns.h.i.+ne without cloud.

and says, in promising fidelity: 'My steady mind is not like the wind.'

Reinmar says:

When winter is over I saw the heath with the red flowers, delightful there....

The long winter is past away; when I saw the green leaves I gave up much of my sorrow.