Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/110

 See, it is now many years since then. Last evening,—continued the Moon,—I looked down upon a creek in the east coast of Zealand. Beautiful woods were there, lofty mounds, an old mansion-house with red walls, swans in the moat, and a little trading town, with its church among the apple-orchards. A fleet of boats, each bearing a torch, glided over the unruffled water; it was not to catch fish that the torches were burning—no! everything was festal! Music sounded, a song was sung; and in the middle of one of the boats stood he whom they honored, a tall, strong man in a large cloak; he had blue eyes, and long white hair. I knew him, and thought upon the Vatican, and the Nile-group, and all the marble gods; I thought upon the poor little chamber where little Bertel sate in his short shirt and spun.

“The wheel of time has gone round; new gods have ascended from the marble. “Hurrah!” resounded from the boats—“Hurrah for Bertel Thorwaldsen!”