Page:Tales of humour and romance translated by Holcroft.djvu/224

 the still features of the child, and the father said: "Break up, oh Moon, that I may see the land where he dwells Rise up Elysium, that I may imagine I behold in thee the place in which his soul resides.—Oh child—my darling child,—knowest thou me—heardest thou me,—hast thou found a countenance as lovely as thine own above—a face as fair?—oh thou cherub's lip, thou cherub's eye!—Alas, there is now no spirit stirring within!"

He spread a bed of flowers beneath the child, instead of all those things by which we are surrounded when laid down to rest amid the silence of the tomb, but his heart broke when he was about to cover the infant's pallid lips and open eyes with flowers and earth, and a stream of tears fell first into the grave. When, with the green turf he had raised up the little mound, he felt that he was weary of his journey, and weary of life, and that in the thin mountain-air his breast was falling into ruins—the icy chill of death sat down upon his heart. He looked round with a longing eye for the wretched mother—she had long stood trembling behind him—and they fell, in silence, into each other's arms, and their eyes could scarce afford another tear.

At length the glorious moon poured her light from behind a gleaming icy peak, over the speechless pair,