. They accept
it good-humouredly enough, with artistic appreciation, no doubt,
of Sachs's well managed _coup de theatre_. "Ah, Sachs, confess
that you are a sly one! But, for this once, have your way!"

"Masters and people are agreed to try the worth of my witness,"
Sachs announces; "Herr Walther von Stolzing, sing the song. And you,
masters, see if he render it aright." He hands them the manuscript.

Walther takes his stand on the flowery mound and starts singing
the song we know already. Presently however, the song lifts him
away, and he alters, as with that power of inspiration behind him
how could he help?--he amplifies, makes more beautiful still. But by
that time the masters have become so interested that they withdraw
their attention from the manuscript, and follow enthralled the
voice of the singer alone.

The song is in its final effect considerably different from the
original one, being the fruit of the moment, like Walther's other
improvisations. It preserves, however, both in text and tune, a
sufficient likeness to the first to prove it of an identical source.
It is the same dream he tells, but expressed in different images.

In a blessed love-dream, he had been led to a garden where, beneath
a miraculous tree, he had beheld--vision promising fulfilment to
love's wildest desire!--a woman of all-surpassing beauty: Eve,
in the garden of Paradise....

In a poet's waking dream, he had been lured by the crystal murmur
of a spring up a steep path. There, beneath a laurel-tree, he had
beheld--and from her hand had received upon his brow water from
the sacred fount,--a woman of a beauty grave and sublime: the Muse
of Parnassus....

There is no doubt of the impression the song produces upon the
audience. As he pauses between the verses, Walther cannot but seize
their irrepressible exclamations. "That is a very different matter!
Who would have thought it?" The people surrender heart-wholly.
"How it soars,--so sweet, so far from earth, and yet it is all as
if one had lived through it himself!"--"It is bold and unusual,
but well-rhymed and singable!" the masters admit. The circumstances
of this hearing are different enough from yesterday's. The infection
of Beckmesser's jealous spite is wanting; softening influences
are in the lovely scene, the poetic occasion. The pure ecstasy of
the song has a chance to work its spell, to transport them outside
of their limitations. They are honourable men, as Sachs assured
W