Path of the Dane to fame and might! Dark-rolling wave ! Receive thy friend, who, scorning flight, Proudly as thou the tempest's might, And amid pleasures and alarms, And war and victory, be thine arms * Nils Juel was a celebrated Danish Admiral, and Peder Wessel, a Vice-Admiral, who for his great prowess received the popular title of Tordenskiold, or Thunder-shield. In childhood he was a tailor's apprentice, and rose to his high rank before the age of twenty-eight, when he was killed in a duel. THE HAPPIEST LAND. FRAGMENT OF A MODERN BALLAD. FROM THE GERMAN. THERE sat one day in quiet, By an alehouse on the Rhine, Four hale and hearty fellows, And drank the precious wine. The landlord's daughter filled their cups, Around the rustic board; Then sat they all so calm and still, And spake not one rude word. But, when the maid departed, A Swabian raised his hand, And cried, all hot and flushed with wine, "Long live the Swabian land! "The greatest kingdom upon earth Cannot with that compare; With all the stout and hardy men And the nut-brown maidens there." "Ha!" cried a Saxon, laughing, And dashed his beard with wine; "I had rather live in Lapland, Than that Swabian land of thine! "The goodliest land on all this earth, It is the Saxon land! There have I as many maidens As fingers on this hand!" Hold your tongues! both Swabian and Saxon!" A bold Bohemian cries; "If there's a heaven upon this earth, In Bohemia it lies. "There the tailor blows the flute, And the cobler blows the horn, And the miner blows the bugle, And then the landlord's daughter And said, "Ye may no more contend,- THE WAVE. FROM THE GERMAN OF TIEDGE. "WHITHER, thou turbid wave? Whither, with so much haste, "I am the Wave of Life, Stained with my margin's dust; From the struggle and the strife Of the narrow stream I fly To the Sea's immensity, To wash from me the slime Of the muddy banks of Time." |