Unwilling stays the throng
To hear the minstrel's song;
Yet cease I not to sing,
Though small the praise it bring;
Even if on desert waste
My lonely lot were cast,
Unto my harp, the same,
My numbers would I frame;
Though never ear were found
To hear the lonely sound,
Still should it echo round;
As the lone nightingale
Her tuneful strain sings on
To her sweet self alone,
Whiling away the hour
Deep in her leafy bow'r,
Where night by night she loves
Her music to prolong,
And makes the hills and groves
Re-echo to her song.
Poem of Konrad von Wurzburg
