Analysis of Walter Von Der Vogel Weid
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
Vogelweid the Minnesinger,
When he left this world of ours,
Laid his body in the cloister,
Under Wurtzburg's minster towers.
And he gave the monks his treasures,
Gave them all with this behest:
They should feed the birds at noontide
Daily on his place of rest;
Saying, "From these wandering minstrels
I have learned the art of song;
Let me now repay the lessons
They have taught so well and long."
Thus the bard of love departed;
And, fulfilling his desire,
On his tomb the birds were feasted
By the children of the choir.
Day by day, o'er tower and turret,
In foul weather and in fair,
Day by day, in vaster numbers,
Flocked the poets of the air.
On the tree whose heavy branches
Overshadowed all the place,
On the pavement, on the tombstone,
On the poet's sculptured face,
On the cross-bars of each window,
On the lintel of each door,
They renewed the War of Wartburg,
Which the bard had fought before.
There they sang their merry carols,
Sang their lauds on every side;
And the name their voices uttered
Was the name of Vogelweid.
Till at length the portly abbot
Murmured, "Why this waste of food?
Be it changed to loaves henceforward
For our tasting brotherhood."
Then in vain o'er tower and turret,
From the walls and woodland nests,
When the minster bells rang noontide,
Gathered the unwelcome guests.
Then in vain, with cries discordant,
Clamorous round the Gothic spire,
Screamed the feathered Minnesingers
For the children of the choir.
Time has long effaced the inscriptions
On the cloister's funeral stones,
And tradition only tells us
Where repose the poet's bones.
But around the vast cathedral,
By sweet echoes multiplied,
Still the birds repeat the legend,
And the name of Vogelweid.
Scheme | ABAB BCCC DEFE XAXA GABA XHXH XAEA DIXC GXCX GJCJ XABA FKXK XIXC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (77%) |
Metre | 101 11111110 11100010 1011010 01101110 1111101 1110111 1011111 101110010 1110111 11101010 1111101 10111010 00101010 11101010 10101010 1111010010 0110001 1110110 1010101 10111010 010101 1010101 1010101 10111110 1010111 1010111 1011101 11111010 11111001 00111010 10111 11101010 1011111 111111 1101010 1011010010 101011 1010111 1000101 10111010 110101 10101 10101010 11110010 1011001 00101011 1010101 10101010 111010 10101010 00111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,707 |
Words | 298 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 52 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 104 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:30 min read
- 148 Views
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"Walter Von Der Vogel Weid" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/19012/walter-von-der-vogel-weid>.
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