Loud upon its hinges sounding,

Open springs the brazen door, Barbarossa and his followers

Walk in bright array once more.

On his helm the crown he beareth,
And the sceptre in his hand;

Swords are glancing, harps are ringing,
Where he moveth through the land.

All before the monarch bending
Render him the homage due,
And the holy German Empire
Foundeth he at Aix anew.

Emanuel Geibel.

Tr. W. W. Caldwell.

BARBAROSSA'S FIRST AWAKENING.

STEPPED in the crimson sunlight

Reposed the golden plain,

As if the yellow cornfields

Were bathed in blood-red rain; Full darkly loomed Kyffhäuser Through fog which slowly broke, When first the spellbound Kaiser From his long sleep awoke.

A look of royal anger

On his vassals round he threw:

"I slept in deepest slumber,

Who dared such deed to do?

Who, braving all my fury,
From sleep has dragged me so,
And called in hollow accents,
'Woe, Hohenstaufen, woe!'

"Who caused that sudden clashing
Of steel on steel to rise?
Who held the gaudy banners
Before my startled eyes?
Who has my dreams distracted
With fleeting forms of air,
And blood-red ensigns floating
On a wide market-square?

"There I beheld a monarch,
High on a throne he sate;
He glared upon a scaffold
With eyes of wrath and hate.
The black-draped scaffold towered
Midst crowding heads and spears,
And on its height were standing
Two youths of tender years.

"Beside them on the scaffold,
Boding a deed of blood,
A grisly grim attendant,

The headsman, waiting stood.
He stood in cap of scarlet
And in a scarlet frock;
He leaned upon his weapon,
Before him was the block !

"Sudden the shrilly clarions

Rang out with murderous glee ; Hear you the king's commandment ? His signal do you see?

One captive flung his gauntlet

Among the crowd below,

Which murmured like the ocean

When the hoarse storm-winds blow!

"His head that first pale victim

Lays firm upon the oak;
See, from his slender body

"T is severed with a stroke!
Far spouts the blood's red fountain,
The king gives sign anew,
And ghastly smiles, as quickly
The second's head falls too!

"Lo! where the heads are rolling

On mine own shattered shield, Who has this fearful vision,

To scare my sleep, revealed? Who, braving all my fury,

From slumber dragged me so, And called in hollow accents, 'Woe, Hohenstaufen, woe!

The dwarfs, all pale and trembling,
Bow down before the king,

"We know not who, O monarch,

Would dare do such a thing

وو

That very time at Naples
The young Conradin stood
With Frederic of Suabia

On a scaffold dripping blood!

'T was then the bearded monarch
Upstarted from his place;
Saw dimly in Kyffhäuser

The end of his own race;
He growled in angry wonder,
And bent again his head,
A century had nearly

Of his long slumber fled.

Ferdinand Freiligrath. Tr. J. McCarthy.

The Kaiser he is sitting

Upon an ivory throne;
Of marble is the table
His head he resteth on.

His beard it is not flaxen,
Like living fire it shines,
And groweth through the table
Whereon his chin reclines.

As in a dream he noddeth,
Then wakes he, heavy-eyed,
And calls, with lifted finger,
A stripling to his side.

"Dwarf, get thee to the gateway,
And tidings bring, if still
Their course the ancient ravens
Are wheeling round the hill.

"For if the ancient ravens Are flying still around,

A hundred years to slumber

By magic spell I'm bound."

Friedrich Rückert. Tr. H. W. Dulcken.