Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79.
Barbarossa’s First Awakening
By Ferdinand Freiligrath (1810–1876)S
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.
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!’
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?
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.
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!
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!
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!
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!’”
Bow down before the king,—
“We know not who, O monarch,
Would dare do such a thing—”
That very time at Naples
The young Conradin stood
With Frederic of Suabia
On a scaffold dripping blood!
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.