same cause.  One of the oldest lyric poets was Friedrich of Hausen.  He perished in the army of Barbarossa.  His songs contain many views of the Crusades; but they chiefly express religious sentiments on the pain of being separated from his dear friends.  He found no occasion to say anything concerning the country or any of those who took part in the wars, as Reinmar the Elder, Rubin, Neidhart, and Ulrich of Lichtenstein.  Reinmar came a pilgrim to Syria, as it appears, in the train of Leopold the 6th, Duke of Austria.  He complains that the recollections of his country always haunted him, and drew away his thoughts from God.  The date tree has here been mentioned sometimes, when they speak of the palm branches which pious pilgrims bore upon their shoulders.  I do not remember that the splendid scenery in Italy has excited the fancy of the minstrels who crossed the Alps.  Walther, who had wandered about, had only seen the river Po; but Friedank was at Rome.  He merely remarked that grass grew in the palaces of those who formerly bore sway there.

As a fact, even the greatest Minnesinger, Walther, the master lyrist of the thirteenth century, was not ahead of his contemporaries in this matter.  His Spring Longing begins: 

  Winter has wrought us harm everywhere,
  Forest and field are dreary and bare
  Where the sweet voices of summer once were,
  Yet by the road where I see maiden fair
  Tossing the ball, the birds’ song is there.

and Spring and Women: 

  When flowers through the grass begin to spring
  As though to greet with smiles the sun’s bright rays,
  On some May morning, and in joyous measure,
  Small songbirds make the dewy forest ring
  With a sweet chorus of sweet roundelays,
  Hath life in all its store a purer pleasure? 
  ’Tis half a Paradise on earth. 
  Yet ask me what I hold of equal worth,
  And I will tell what better still
  Ofttimes before hath pleased mine eyes,
  And, while I see it, ever will. 
  When a noble maiden, fair and pure,
  With raiment rich and tresses deftly braided,
  Mingles, for pleasure’s sake, in company,
  High bred, with eyes that, laughingly demure,
  Glance round at times and make all else seem faded,
  As, when the sun shines, all the stars must die. 
  Let May bud forth in all its splendour;
  What sight so sweet can he engender
  As with this picture to compare? 
  Unheeded leave we buds and blooms,
  And gaze upon the lovely fair!

The grace in this rendering of a familiar motive, and the individuality in the following Complaint of Winter, were both unusual at the time: 

  Erewhile the world shone red and blue
  And green in wood and upland too,
  And birdlets sang on the bough. 
  But now it’s grown grey and lost its glow,
  And there’s only the croak of the winter crow,
  Whence—­many a ruffled brow!