Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/82



I passed over Luneburg Heath,—said the Moon,—a solitary house stood by the roadside; some leafless trees grew beside it, and among these sung a nightingale which had lost its way. In the severity of the night it must perish; that was its song of death which I heard. With the early twilight there came along the road a company of emigrant peasants, who were on their way to Bremen or Hamburgh, to take ship for America, where happiness—the so much dreamed-of happiness—they expected should spring up for them. The women carried their youngest children upon their backs. the older ones sprang along by their side; a poor miserable horse dragged a car, on which were a