| Share page |
|
686 A STRING OF PEARLS
times in Denmark. The green wood and the song of the birds go together; so also do the names of Soro and Ingemann.
On to the town of Slagelse------! what is reflected here in the
sheen of the pearl ? Vanished is the cloister of Antvorskov, vanished the rich halls of the castle, and even its solitary deserted wing; still one old relic remains, renewed and again renewed, a wooden cross on the hill over there, where in legendary times, St. Andrew, the priest of Slagelse, wakened up, borne hither in one night from Jerusalem.
Korsor—here wert thou born, who gave us
Jest with earnest blended In songs of Knud the voyager.
Thou master of words and wit! the decaying old ramparts of the forsaken fortress are now the last visible witness of the home of thy childhood ; when the sun sets, their shadows point to where thy birthplace stood ; from these ramparts, looking towards the height of Sprogo, thou sawest, when thou wast small, ' the moon glide down behind the isle,' and sang of it in immortal strains, as thou since hast sung of the mountains of Switzerland; thou, who didst wander about in the labyrinth of the world and found that
Nowhere is the rose so red, And nowhere are the thorns so few, And nowhere is the couch so soft As those our simple childhood knew.
Thou lively singer of wit! we weave thee a garland of woodruff, and cast it in the lake, and the waves will bear it to Kieler-fiord, on whose coast thy dust is laid ; it brings a greeting from the young generation, a greeting from the town of thy birth, Korsor—where the string of pearls is broken.
1 It is indeed a string of pearls from Copenhagen to Korsor,' said Grandmother, who had heard what we have just read. ' It is a string of pearls for me, and it had already come to be that for me more than forty years ago,' said she. * We had no steam-engines then; we spent days on the way, where you now only spend hours. It was in 1815 ; I was twenty-one then—it is a delightful age ! And yet up in the sixties is also a delightful age, so full of blessings! In my young days it was a greater event than now to get |
||