Our minstrel in old age felt poverty’s sure pinch. No money could he earn; bread, not enough for finch. He prayed: “O God, long life and full to me Thou’st given, To worthless sinner Thou hast shown foretaste of heaven. I’ve slighted Thy commandments seventy years and more, Not one day hast Thou let me pangs of want feel sore. 185 No longer can I earn; I’m now Thy household guest; I’ll harp for love of Thee, Thou giver of my feast.” His harp on shoulder slung, he went, in quest of God, To burial-ground of Yathrab;[275] sat down on the sod. Said he: “I’ll ask of God the hire of my harpstrings; For He accepts the heart’s most humble outpourings.” He harped awhile, and then he laid him down and wept. His harp his pillow was; upon a grave he slept. With sleep his soul was freed from prison and from pain, The harp and harper both were now made young again. 190 His soul, free, wandered forth, exempt from all dull care, In spacious fields of heaven, the soul’s park, light as air. There he began to warble, merry as a lark: “O that I here might dwell without a care to cark! How joyous I should be in such a paradise; These sweet ethereal fields breathe balm, and myrrh, and spice. I’d wander all about; no need of feet or wings. All sweets I’d feast on; lips and teeth were useless things. My mind at rest, from all care free, I’d ever roam. The angels I’d not envy in their heavenly home. 195 With bandaged eyes I’d survey realms without an end; All sorts of flowers I’d gather, yet not soil my hand. Like duck in pond, down deep I’d plunge in honey lake.[276] In Job’s own fount I’d bathe, in wine I’d revel make. For Job with wine from heaven was cleansed in every pore; From head to foot he came forth healed, without a sore.” If these poor rhyming verses covered heaven’s vast vault, They’d not tell half a tithe, they still would be at fault. The sum of heavenly joys I find an endless theme; My heart is far too narrow to embrace its scheme. 200 The world I would enclose in my poor poem’s fold, Has lent my thoughts the wings that make their flight so bold. Were but that world in sight; its road, were it but known; Few souls would here remain, were but its glories shown. Commandment has been given: “Thou shalt not covetous be.” The thorn from out thy foot is drawn; thy thanks let’s see. “My Lord! My God!” loud cried our minstrel in that place, Those glorious realms of mercy, boundless shores of grace.