Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/33

Rh edge of which all this gain had come to him, To which last acquisitions adding his previously acquired Invulnerability, and his natural dignities as Prince of Netherland, he might well show himself before the foremost at Worms or elsewhere; and attempt any the highest adventure that fortune could cut out for him. However, his subsequent history belongs all to the “Nibelungen Song”; at which fair garden of poesy we are now, through all these shaggy wildernesses and enchanted woods, finally arrived.

Apart from its antiquarian value, and not only as by far the finest monument of old German art; but intrinsically, and as a mere detached composition, this “Nibelungen” has an excellence that cannot but surprise us. With little preparation, any reader of poetry, even in these days, might find it interesting, It is not without a certain Unity of interest and purport, an internal coherence and completeness; it is a Whole, and some spirit of Music informs it: these are the highest characteristics of a true