Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BARBAROSSA, by RODEN BERKELEY WRIOTHESLEY NOEL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BARBAROSSA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Deep in a mountain's caverned hall
Last Line: Seeing him rise!
Subject(s): Untersberg, Austria


DEEP in a mountain's caverned hall,
It is whispered low,
Waits in a weird, sepulchral glow
An armed 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.

Anon, at age-long intervals,
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.

Behold! the raven devours the slain!
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!





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