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1122 A PICTURE-BOOK WITHOUT PICTURES
' The dawn came glimmering red. I saw a caravan of emigrant peasant families who were bound to Bremen or Hamburg, there to take ship for America, where fancied prosperity would bloom for them. The mothers carried their little children at their backs, the elder ones skipped by their sides, and a poor starved horse tugged at a cart that bore their scanty effects. The cold wind whistled, and therefore the little girl nestled closer to the mother, who, looking up at my decreasing disk, thought of the bitter want at home, and spoke of the heavy taxes they had not been able to raise. The whole caravan thought of the same thing; therefore the rising dawn seemed to them a message from the sun, of fortune that was to gleam brightly upon them. They heard the dying nightingale sing: it was no false prophet, but a harbinger of fortune. The wind whistled, therefore they did not understand that the nightingale sang, " Ear away over the sea ! Thou hast paid the long passage with all that was thine, and poor and helpless shalt thou enter Canaan. Thou must sell thyself, thy wife, and thy children. But your griefs shall not last long. Behind the broad fragrant leaves lurks the goddess of death, and her welcome kiss shall breathe fever into thy blood. Fare away, fare away, over the heaving billows.', And the caravan listened well pleased to the song of the nightingale, which seemed to promise good fortune. Day broke through the light clouds ; country-people went across the heath to church : the black-gowned women with their white head-dresses looked like ghosts that had stepped forth from the church pictures. All around lay a wide dead plain, covered with faded brown heath, and black charred spaces between the white sand-hills. The women carried hymn books, and walked into the church. Oh, pray, pray for those who are wandering to find graves beyond the foaming billows/ |
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Sixteenth Evening
' I know a Punchinello/ the Moon told me. ' The public applaud vociferously directly they see him. Every one of his movements is comic, and is sure to throw the house into |
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