Page:Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen (Walker).djvu/204

166 have kissed the wreath of Immortelles on the lad's grave, and this night they kissed the forehead of the old grandmother while she dreamt and saw the picture you may sketch here, 'The poor boy upon the throne of France!'"

SIXTH EVENING

"I have been in Upsala," said the moon. "I looked down upon the great plain covered with coarse grass and the barren fields. I looked at myself in the waters of the Fyris river, while the steamers frightened the fishes in among the rushes. The clouds chased each other below me, and threw their shadows on to Odin's, Thor's, and Freya's graves, as they are called. Names have been cut all over the mounds in the short turf. There is no monument here, where travellers can have their Dames carved, nor rock walls where they may be painted, so the visitors have had the turf cut away, and their names stand out in the bare earth. There is a perfect network of these spread all over the mounds. A form of immortality which only lasts till the fresh grass grows. A man was standing there, a poet. He emptied the mead horn with its broad silver rim and whispered a name, telling the wind not to betray it; but I heard it and knew it. A count's coronet sparkles over it, and therefore he did not speak it aloud. I smiled; a poet's crown sparkles over his! Eleanora d'Este's nobility gains lustre from Tasso's name. I knew, too, where this Rose of Beauty blooms!" Having said this the moon was hidden by a cloud. May no clouds come between the poet and his rose!

SEVENTH EVENING

"Along the shore stretches a great forest of oak and beech; sweet and fragrant is its scent. It is visited every year by hundreds of nightingales. The sea is close by, the ever-changing sea, and the broad high-road separates the two. One carriage