The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries/Volume 5/Barbarossa
FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
BARBAROSSA[1] (Between 1814 and 1817)
HE ancient Barbarossa,
Friedrich, the Kaiser great,
Within the castle-cavern
Sits in enchanted state.
He did not die; but ever
Waits in the chamber deep,
Where hidden under the castle
He sat himself to sleep.
The splendor of the Empire
He took with him away,
And back to earth will bring it
When dawns the promised day.
The chair is ivory purest
Whereof he makes his bed;
The table is of marble
Whereon he props his head.
His beard, not flax, but burning
With fierce and fiery glow,
Eight through the marble table
Beneath his chair does grow.
He nods in dreams and winketh
With dull, half-open eyes,
And once a page he beckons—
A page that standeth by.
| Permission F. Bruckmann, A.-G., Munich | C. Jager |
FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT
He bids the boy in slumber:
"O dwarf, go up this hour,
And see if still the ravens
Are flying round the tower;
And if the ancient ravens
Still wheel above us here.
Then must I sleep enchanted
For many a hundred year."
- ↑ Translators: Bayard Taylor and Lilian Bayard Taylor Kiliani. From A Sheaf of Poems, permission R. G. Badger, Boston.