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| I STOOD in that cathedral old, the work of kingly power, | |
| That from the clustered roofs of Aix lifts up its mouldering tower, | |
| And, like a legend strange and rude, speaks of an earlier day,— | |
| Of saint and knight, the tourney’s pomp, and the Minnesinger’s lay! | |
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| Above me rose the pillared dome, with many a statue grim, | 5 |
| And through the chancel-oriel came a splendor soft and dim, | |
| Till dusky shrine and painting old glowed in the lustre wan: | |
| Below me was a marble slab,—the tomb of Charlemagne. | |
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| A burst of organ-music rang so grandly, sadly slow, | |
| It seemed a requiem thundered o’er the dead who slept below; | 10 |
| And with the sound came thronging round the stern men of that time, | |
| When best was he who bravest fought, and cowardice was crime. | |
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| I thought upon the day when he, whose dust I stood upon, | |
| Ruled with a monarch’s boundless right the kingdoms he had won,— | |
| When rose the broad Alps in his realm, and roared the Baltic’s wave; | 15 |
| And now—the lowest serf might stand, unheeded, on his grave. | |
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| And ruthless hands despoiled his dust, attired in regal pride, | |
| The crown upon his crumbled brows, and Joyeuse by his side,— | |
| Whose rusted blade, at Ronçeval, flamed in the hero’s hand | |
| In answer to the silver horn of the Paladin, Rolánd. | 20 |
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| I stood on that neglected stone, thrilled with the glorious sound, | |
| While bowed at many a holier shrine the worshippers around,— | |
| And through the cloud of incense-smoke burned many a taper dim, | |
| And priestly stoles went sweeping by,—I could but think of him! | |
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| I saw the boy with yellow locks, crowned at St. Deny’s shrine; | 25 |
| The emperor in his purple cloak, the lord of all the Rhine; | |
| The conqueror of a thousand foes, in battle stern and hard; | |
| The widowed mourner at thy tomb, O fairest Hildegarde! | |
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| Long pealed the music of the choir through chancel-arch and nave, | |
| As, lost in those old memories, I stood upon his grave; | 30 |
| And when the morning anthem ceased, and solemn mass began, | |
| I left that minster gray and old,—the tomb of Charlemagne! | |
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