Why shall not the Franks sing God's praise in Frankish tongue? Forcible and logical it is, although not bound by grammar's rules. Yes, why should the Franks be incapable? they are brave as Romans or Greeks; they are as good in field and wood; wide power is theirs, and ready are they with the sword. They are rich, and possess a good land, with honour. They can guard their own; what people is their equal in battle? Diligent are they also in the Word of God. Otfrid is quite moving in his sympathetic sense of the sorrow of the Last Judgment, when the mother from child shall be parted, the father from son, the lord from his faithful thane, friend from friend—all human kind. Deep is the mystic love and yearning with which he realizes Heaven as one's own land: there is life without death, light without darkness, the angels and eternal bliss. We have left it—that must we bewail always, banished to a strange land, poor misled orphans. The antithesis between the fremidemo lant (fremdes land) of earth, and the heimat, the eigan lant of Heaven, which is home, real home, is the keynote strongly felt and movingly expressed.
