Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79.
Barbarossa
By Roden Berkeley Wriothesley Noel (1834–1894)D
It is whispered low,
Waits in a weird, sepulchral glow
An arméd phantom, crowned and tall,
Whose hoary beard of centuries
Grows on the gray stone where it lies;
While jewelled knights with glittering eyes
Glower round
In trance profound.
The ghostly king
Sends a raven of sable wing
From his stupendous prison-walls,
To learn how near the fated hour
When he may reassume the power,—
Behold! no raven comes again.
Vaults asunder
Burst in thunder!
Lo! in the hall of mirrors yonder,
In a palace consecrate to all
Age-long glories of the Gaul,
A German wears imperial
Purple: Barbarossa lives!
The ghost of a dark age revives,
And the heart of every freeman dies,
Seeing him rise!