Yearning with morbid fancy once again To see the kind face of the minstrel boy He met beside the well. At set of sun He reached the place; the reaping-folk were gone, The day's toil over, yet he took his seat. A milking-girl with laden buckets full, Came slowly from the pasture, paused and drank. From a near cottage ran a ragged boy, And filled his wooden pail, and to his home Returned across the fields. A herdsman came, And drank and gave his dog to drink, and passed, Greeting the holy man who sat there still, Awaiting. But his feeble pulse beat high When he descried at last a youthful form, Crossing the field, a pitcher on his head, Advancing towards the well. Yea, this was he, The same grave eyes, and open, girlish face. But he saw not, amidst the landscape brown, The knight's brown figure, who, to win his ear, Asked the lad's name. "My name is Salvator, To serve you, sir," he carelessly replied, With eyes and hands intent upon his jar, Brimming and bubbling. Then he cast one glance Upon his questioner, and left the well, Crying with keen and sudden sympathy, "Good Father, pardon me, I knew you not. Ah! you have travelled overmuch: your feet Are grimed with mud and wet, your face is changed, Your hands are dry with fever." But the knight: "Nay, as I look on thee, I think the Lord Wills not that I should suffer any more." "Then you have suffered much," sighed Salvator, With wondering pity. "You must come with me; My father knows of you, I told him all. A knight and minstrel who cast by his lyre, His health and fame, to give himself to God,-- Yours is a life indeed to be desired! If you will lie with us this night, our home Will verily be blessed." By kindness crushed, Wandering in sense and words, the broken knight Resisted naught, and let himself be led To the boy's home. The outcast and accursed Was welcomed now by kindly human hands; Once more his blighted spirit was revived By contact with refreshing innocence. There, when the morning broke upon the world, The humble hosts no longer knew their guest. His fleshly weeds of sin forever doffed, Tannhauser lay and smiled, for in the night The angel came who brings eternal peace. ____________________ Far into Wartburg, through all Italy, In every town the Pope sent messengers, Riding in furious haste; among them, one Who bore a branch of dry wood burst in bloom; The pastoral rod had borne green shoots of spring, And leaf and blossom. God is merciful.