And speaketh grimly,

The ghost to the dust:

"Dry dust! thou dreary one!

How little didst thou labour for me!

In the foulness of earth

Thou all wearest away

Like to the loam !

Little didst thou think
How thy soul's journey
Would be thereafter,
When from the body"
It should be led forth."

KING CHRISTIAN.

A NATIONAL SONG OF DENMARK.-FROM THE DANISH OF JOHANNES EVALD.

KING CHRISTIAN stood by the lofty mast
In mist and smoke;

His sword was hammering so fast,

Through Gothic helm and brain it passed ;
Then sank each hostile hulk and mast,
In mist and smoke.

"Fly!" shouted they, “fly, he who can!
Who braves of Denmark's Christian
The stroke?"

Nils Juel gave heed to the tempest's roar,
Now is the hour!

He hoisted his blood-red flag once more,
And smote upon the foe full sore,

And shouted loud, through the tempest's roar,
"Now is the hour!"

"Fly!" shouted they, "for shelter fly!
Of Denmark's Juel who can defy

The power?"

North Sea! a glimpse of Wessel rent

Thy murky sky!

Then champions to thine arms were sent ;
Terror and Death glared where he went;
From the waves was heard a wail, that rent
Thy murky sky!

From Denmark, thunders Tordenskiol',
Let each to Heaven commend his soul,
And fly!

Path of the Dane to fame and might!
Dark-rolling wave!

Receive thy friend, who, scorning flight,
Goes to meet danger with despite,
Proudly as thou the tempest's might,
Dark-rolling wave!

And amid pleasures and alarms,
And war and victory, be thine arms
My grave! 27

CHILDHOOD.

FROM THE DANISH OF JENS BAGGESEN.

[BAGGESEN's lyric poems are considered his best productions. Many of them are written with great tenderness of feeling and elegance of style.]

THERE was a time when I was very small,

When my whole frame was but an ell in height ; Sweetly, as I recall it, tears do fall,

And therefore I recall it with delight.

I sported in my tender mother's arms,

And rode a-horseback on best father's knee; Alike were sorrows, passions, and alarms,

And gold, and Greek, and love, unknown to me.

Then seemed to me this world far less in size,
Likewise it seemed to me less wicked far;
Like points in heaven, I saw the stars arise,
And longed for wings that I might catch a star

I saw the moon behind the island fade,

And thought, "O, were I on that island there, I could find out of what the moon is made,

Find out how large it is, how round, how fair!"

Wondering, I saw God's sun, through western skies,
Sink in the ocean's golden lap at night,

And yet upon the morrow early rise,

And paint the eastern heaven with crimson light!

And thought of God, the gracious Heavenly Father,
Who made me, and that lovely sun on high,
And all those pearls of heaven thick-strung together,
Dropped, clustering, from his hand o'er all the sky.

With childish reverence, my young lips did say
The prayer my pious mother taught to me:
"O gentle God! O, let me strive alway

Still to be wise, and good, and follow thee !"

So prayed I for my father and my mother,
And for my sister, and for all the town:
The king I knew not, and the beggar-brother,
Who, bent with age, went sighing up and down.

They perished, the blithe days of boyhood perished,
And all the gladness, all the peace I knew!
Now have I but their memory, fondly cherished ;-
God! may I never, never lose that too!

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!

66

“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 cobbler blows the horn,
And the miner blows the bugle
Over mountain-gorge and bourn."

And then the landlord's daughter
Up to heaven raised her hand,
And said, “Ye may no more contend,———
There lies the happiest land!”