CRIER OP THE DEAD. 
      Wake! wake! 
      All ye that sleep! 
      Pray for the Dead! 
      Pray for the Dead!

PRINCE HENRY. 
Wake not, beloved! be thy sleep
Silent as night is, and as deep! 
There walks a sentinel at thy gate
Whose heart is heavy and desolate,
And the heavings of whose bosom number
The respirations of thy slumber,
As if some strange, mysterious fate
Had linked two hearts in one, and mine
Went madly wheeling about thine,
Only with wider and wilder sweep!

CRIER OP THE DEAD, at a distance. 
      Wake! wake! 
      All ye that sleep! 
      Pray for the Dead! 
      Pray for the Dead!

PRINCE HENRY. 
Lo! with what depth of blackness thrown
Against the clouds, far up the skies
The walls of the cathedral rise,
Like a mysterious grove of stone,
With fitful lights and shadows blending,
As from behind, the moon ascending,
Lights its dim aisles and paths unknown! 
The wind is rising; but the boughs
Rise not and fall not with the wind,
That through their foliage sobs and soughs;
Only the cloudy rack behind,
Drifting onward, wild and ragged,
Gives to each spire and buttress jagged
A seeming motion undefined. 
Below on the square, an armed knight,
Still as a statue and as white,
Sits on his steed, and the moonbeams quiver
Upon the points of his armor bright
As on the ripples of a river. 
He lifts the visor from his cheek,
And beckons, and makes as he would speak.

WALTER the Minnesinger. 
Friend! can you tell me where alight
Thuringia’s horsemen for the night? 
For I have lingered in the rear,
And wander vainly up and down.

PRINCE HENRY. 
I am a stranger in the town. 
As thou art; but the voice I hear
Is not a stranger to mine ear. 
Thou art Walter of the Vogelweid!

WALTER. 
Thou hast guessed rightly; and thy name
Is Henry of Hoheneck!

PRINCE HENRY. 
                      Ay, the same.

WALTER, embracing him. 
Come closer, closer to my side! 
What brings thee hither?  What potent charm
Has drawn thee from thy German farm
Into the old Alsatian city?

PRINCE HENRY. 
A tale of wonder and of pity! 
A wretched man, almost by stealth
Dragging my body to Salem,
In the vain hope and search for health,
And destined never to return. 
Already thou hast heard the rest. 
But what brings thee, thus armed and dight
In the equipments of a knight?

WALTER. 
Dost thou not see upon my breast
The cross of the Crusaders shine? 
My pathway leads to Palestine.

PRINCE HENRY. 
Ah, would that way were also mine! 
O noble poet! thou whose heart
Is like a nest of singing-birds
Rocked on the topmost bough of life,
Wilt thou, too, from our sky depart,
And in the clangor of the strife
Mingle the music of thy words?