Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/348

 seen beautiful green meadows, where the hart and the hind were sporting on the soft grass. Stately oaks and noble beech-trees; and where the bark of any tree had split, long tendrils of green climbing plants grew out of the crevices. There were also large tracts of land, interspersed with quiet lakes, on whose smooth surface white swans skimmed and flapped their wings. The king’s son frequently stood still and listened, for he sometimes fancied the sound of the bell came to him from one of the lakes, but after a few moments he would feel sure it could not be from any other place than the forest. The sun went down; the atmosphere reflected the red light from the sky like fire; silence reigned in the forest. Then he sank on his knees, and sung his evening hymn. “I shall never find what I am seeking,” he said; “the sun is going down, and night, dark night approaches. Yet once more perhaps I may see the round red sun before he disappears beneath the horizon. I will climb upon these rocks, for they are higher than the highest trees.” Then he contrived to climb upon the wet rocks by seizing upon the roots and creeping-plants that grew near them; watersnakes were wriggling about, and the toads seemed to bay at him, yet he reached the highest point before the sun had quite set. Oh, what a beautiful prospect lay before him! The sea—the glorious, magnificent sea—rolling its great billows towards him, while the sun stood like a large altar of fire, just at the spot where sea and sky met, and then everything melted together into one glowing tint. The forest sang, there was music in the foaming sea, and his heart joined in the universal anthem. All nature was one great, holy church, of which the trees and the floating clouds were the pillars, flowers and grass the many-coloured velvet carpet, and the heavens themselves the lofty, vaulted roof. Then the glowing colours faded away, the sun sunk to rest, and millions of stars lighted up the expanse like diamond lamps. The king’s son stretched forth his arms towards heaven, towards the sea, and towards the forest.

Suddenly, from a road at the right hand, came the poor newly confirmed boy with the short jacket and the wooden shoes; he too had come just in time, and had arrived at the same place by a different road. And they ran to meet each other, and stood hand-in-hand in the great temple of nature and poetry. And above them sounded the invisible, holy bell—Nature’s music; and happy spirits floated around them singing hallelujahs of joy.