Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/259

XVII.]

Whene’er they found poor people who nothing had to bring,

They sent them to the minster, with gold for offering

From Siegfried’s treasure taken. Since life he could not have,

Of marks for his soul’s welfare they many thousand gave.

The first-fruits were divided in all the land around,

Wherever cloister-houses or goodly folk were found.

Of silver and of raiment the poor got ample store:

Men did the like as showing what love to him they bore.

Upon the third day early, just at the hour of Mass,

The churchyard wide extending,— that by the minster was,—

With country-people’s wailing was fill’d from end to end.

In death they did him service, as to a well-loved friend.

In those four days of mourning, indeed, it hath been said,

That marks full thirty-thousand, or even more, were paid

For sake of his soul’s welfare, and given to the poor.

Laid low was all his beauty, his life was now no more.

When God was servéd duly, and all the chants were sung,

A dreadful cry of sorrow arose from out the throng;

Out of the minster must they now bear him to his grave.

Those who were loth to lose him fresh tears and cries forth gave.

With cries of lamentation the people follow’d then;

The faces all were joyless of women and of men.

Ere in his grave they laid him they sang and read withal;

Ay! and the priests were worthy who gave him burial.