The Veteran - Esaias Tegnér

I love the old heroic times
  Of Charles the Twelfth, our country’s glory,
And deem them fittest for the scenes
  Of stern or tender story;
For he was blithe as Peace may be,
Yet boisterous as Victory.
Even now, on high, there glide,
Up and down, at eventide,
Mighty men, like those of old,
With frocks of blue and belts of gold.
O, reverently I gaze upon
  Those soldier spirits clad in light,
And hold as things most wonderful
  Their coats of buff and swords of giant height.

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Esaias Tegnér (1782 - 1846) Sweden

Translator not known

Source: Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes, ed. by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co