WHEN the gray Emperor at the Gates of Death | |
| Stood silent, up from Earth there came the sound | |
| Of mourning and dismay; man’s futile breath | |
| Vexed the still air around. | |
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| But silent stood the Emperor and alone | 5 |
| Before the ever silent gates of stone | |
| That open and close at either end of life; | |
| As who, having fought his fight, | |
| Stands, overtaken of night, | |
| And hears afar the receding sound of strife. | 10 |
| Wide open swing the gates: | |
| |
| Hail, Hohenzollern, hail to thee!… | |
| If thou be he | |
| For whom each hero waits, | |
| Hail, hail to thee! | 15 |
| |
| So rings | |
| The chorus of the Kings. | |
| This is the House of Death, the Hall of Fame, | |
| Lit, its vast length, by torches’ flickering flame; | |
| And, with their faces by the torch-fires lit, | 20 |
| Around the board the expectant monarchy sit. | |
| Filled are their drink-horns with the immortals’ wine— | |
| They wait for him, the latest of their line. | |
| |
| Under the flags they sit, beneath | |
| The which the keen sword spurned its sheath. | 25 |
| Under the flags that first were woven | |
| To bring the fire to stranger eyes; | |
| That now, at cost of corselets cloven, | |
| In lines of tattered trophies rise. | |
| To greet the newly come they wait— | 30 |
| The heroes of the German State: | |
| |
| His father, unto whom the west wind blew | |
| The echo of the guns of Waterloo: | |
| That greater FREDERICK, with the lust of power | |
| Still smouldering in his eyes, his troubled heart | 35 |
| Impatient with the briefness of his hour | |
| That altered Europe’s chart: | |
| And he, the great Elector, he who first | |
| Sounded to Poland’s King a nation’s word: | |
| |
| And he who earlier, by Rome accursed, | 40 |
| The trumpet-tone of Martin Luther heard— | |
| So the long line of faces grim | |
| Grows faint and dim, | |
| And at the farther end, where lights burn low, | |
| Where, through a misty glow, | 45 |
| Heroes of German song and story rise | |
| Gods to our eyes, | |
| Great HERMANN rises, father of a race, | |
| To give the Emperor his place. | |
| “Come to the table’s head, | 50 |
| Among the ennobled dead!” | |
| He cries: “Nor none shall ask me of thy right.” | |
| Then speaks he to the board: | |
| “Bow down in one accord, | |
| To him whose strength is Majesty, not Might. | 55 |
| |
| “Emperor and King he comes; his people’s cry | |
| Pierces our distant sky; | |
| Emperor and King he comes, whose mighty hand | |
| Gathered in one the kingdoms of the land. | |
| Yet greater far the tale shall be | 60 |
| That gains him immortality: | |
| To his high task no selfish thought, | |
| No coward hesitance he brought; | |
| All that it was to be a King | |
| He was, nor counted of the cost. | 65 |
| He rounds our circle—Time may bring | |
| The day when Earth shall need no King— | |
| All that Kings were, in him Earth lost.” | |
| |
| “Hail, Hohenzollern, hail!” cried the heroes dead; | |
| And the gray Emperor sat at the table’s head. | 70 |
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