Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Born February 27, 1807, in Portland, Maine, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick. He began his teaching career there at the age of 22 as a professor of modern languages. After five years at Bowdoin, he accepted an appoinment at Harvard and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he spent much of the remainder of his life. The most familiar of his poems have become a part of the American language. Among his more noteworthy works were Hiawatha, Evangeline, The Children's Hour, and The Courtship of Miles Standish. He died on March 24, 1882.

In his lifetime and for decades afterwards, Longfellow was idolized as one of America's greatest poets. He was arguably the most popular literary figure in nineteenth century America. What is not as widely known is that the great German minnesinger, Walther von der Vogelweide, had a stong influence on Longfellow the poet.

In Longfellow: His Life and Works,author Newton Arvin notes that "The figure of Walther fascinated Longfellow, who had included a poem about him (Song of Walther von der Vogelweid) in The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poemsand two poems by him in The Poets and Poetry of Europe." The Song of Walther von der Vogelweid is provided below:

WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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.

Sarah R Voglewede at the tombstone of Walther von der Vogelweide in Würzburg, Germany. This tomb is described in Longfellow's poem, The Song of Walther von der Vogelweid. Visible on the top of the tombstone, here covered with flowers, are two dish-shaped depressions where birdseed could be placed. Barely visible on the front of the tomb is the name Vogelweide.

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