Zigzag Journeys in Northern Lands, Hezekiah Butterworth [best short novels .txt] 📗
- Author: Hezekiah Butterworth
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Rose o’er the Alps of green;
The damask sky a roseate light
Flashed on the Lake, and low
Above Mt. Pilate’s shadowy height
Night bent her silver bow.
How many centuries old!
And entered as the organ’s strain
Along the arches rolled;
Such as when guardian spirits bear
A soul to realms of light,
And melts in the immortal air
The anthem of their flight;
Then followed strains so sweet,
So sadly sweet and low,
That they seemed like memory’s music,
And the chords of long ago.
A deep gust followed soon,
As when a dark cloud flies
Across the sun, at noon.
It filled the aisles,—each drew
His garments round his form;
We could not feel the wind that blew,
We could only hear the storm.
Then we cast a curious eye
Towards the window’s lights,
And saw the lake serenely lie
Beneath the crystal heights.
Fair rose the Alps of white
Above the Alps of green,
The slopes lay bright in the sun of night,
And the peaks in the sun unseen.
As when the tempest breaks
Upon the peaks, while sunshine fair
Is dreaming in the lakes.
The birds shrieked on their wing;
When rose a wind so drear,
Its troubled spirit seemed to bring
The shades of darkness near.
We looked towards the windows old,
Calm was the eve of June,
On the summits shone the twilight’s gold,
And on Pilate shone the moon.
Upturned the startled face;
When a mighty thunder-crash
With horror filled the place!
From arch to arch the peal
Was echoed loud and long;
Then o’er the pathway seemed to steal
Another seraph’s song;
And ’mid the thunder’s crash
And the song’s enraptured flow,
We still could hear, with charmèd ear,
The organ playing low.
THE RIVER OF SONG.
Came raindrops, falling near,
A rain one could not feel,
A rain that smote the ear.
And we turned to look again
Towards the mountain wall,
When a deep tone shook the fane,
Like the avalanche’s fall.
Loud piped the wind, fast poured the rain,
The very earth seemed riven,
And wildly flashed, and yet again,
The smiting fires of heaven.
And cheeks that wore the light of smiles
When slowly rose the gale,
Like pulseless statues lined the aisles
And, as forms of marble, pale.
The organ’s undertones
Still sounded sweet and low,
And the calm of a more than mortal trust
With the rhythms seemed to flow.
Was lifted from the keys,
As if more holy was the place
As he touched the notes of peace.
Then the sympathetic reeds
His chastened spirit caught,
As the senses met the needs
And the touch of human thought.
The organ whispered sweet,
The organ whispered low,
“Fear not, God’s love is with thee,
Though tempests round thee blow!”
And the soul’s grand power ’twas ours to trace,
And its deathless hopes discern,
As we gazed that night on the living face
Of the Organ of Lucerne.
That strange and ghostly storm,
And a parting beam the twilight cast
Through the windows, bright and warm.
The music grew more clear,
Our gladdened pulses swaying,
When Alpine horns we seemed to hear
On all the hillsides playing.
Stole on the eve of June!
Cool Righi in the dusky air,
The low-descending moon!
No breath the lake cerulean stirred,
No cloud could eye discern;
The Alps were silent,—we had heard
The Organ of Lucerne.
A wall of glass and fire,
And Morning, from her summer zone,
Illumined tower and spire;
I walked beside the lake again,
Along the Alpine meadows,
Then sought the old melodious fane
Beneath the Righi’s shadows.
The organ, spanned by arches quaint,
Rose silent, cold, and bare,
Like the pulseless tomb of a vanished saint:—
The Master was not there!
But the soul’s grand power ’twas mine to trace
And its deathless hopes discern,
As I gazed that morn on the still, dead face
Of the Organ of Lucerne.
CHAPTER XV. COPENHAGEN.
Copenhagen.—The Story of Ancient Denmark.—The Royal Family.—Story of a King who was out into a Bag.
ON the Denmark Night Mr. Beal gave a short introductory talk on Copenhagen, and several of the boys related stories by Hans Christian Andersen. Master Lewis gave some account of the early history of Denmark and of the present Royal Family; and Herman Reed related an odd story of one of the early kings of Denmark.
“Copenhagen, or the Merchants’ Haven, the capital of the island kingdom of Denmark, rises out of the coast of Zealand, and breaks the loneliness and monotony of a long coast line. It was a beautiful vision as we approached it in the summer evening hours of the high latitude,—evening only to us, for the sun was still high above the horizon. The spire of the Church of Our Saviour—three hundred feet high—appeared to stand against the sky. Palaces seemed to lift themselves above the sea as we steamed slowly towards the great historic city of the North.
“The entrance to the harbor is narrow but deep. The harbor itself is full of ships; Copenhagen is the station of the Danish navy.
“We passed very slowly through the water streets among the ships of the harbor,—for water streets they seemed,—and after a tedious landing, were driven through the crooked streets of a strange old town to a quiet hotel where some English friends we had met on the Continent were stopping.
“The city is little larger than Providence, Rhode Island. Its public buildings are superb. It is an intellectual city, and its libraries are the finest of Europe.
THE PALACE OF ROSENBORG.
“It is divided into two parts, the old town and the new. In the new part are broad streets and fine squares.
“We visited the Rosenborg Palace, the old residence of the Danish kings;—it is only a show palace now. In the church we saw Thorwaldsen’s statues of the Twelve Apostles, regarded as the finest of his works.
VIEW OF COPENHAGEN.
THE STORY OF ANCIENT DENMARK.It is a strange, wild romance, the early history of the nations of the North.
The Greeks and Romans knew but little about the Scandinavians. They knew that there was a people in the regions from which came the north winds. The north wind was very cold. Was there a region beyond the north wind? If so, how lovely it must be, where the cold winds never blow. They fancied that there was such a region. They called the inhabitants Hyperboreans, or the people beyond the north wind. They imagined also that in this region of eternal summer men did not die. If one of the Hyperboreans became tired of earth, he had to kill himself by leaping from a cliff.
The Northmen, or the inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, were of the same origin as the tribes that peopled Germany, and that came from the East, probably from the borders of the Black Sea. They were fire-worshippers, and their chief god was Odin.
Denmark means a land of dark woods. In ancient times it was probably covered with sombre firs. One of its early kings was Dan the Famous. His descendants were called Danes.
Many ages after the reign of this king, the land was filled with peace and plenty. It was the Golden Age of the North. Frode the Peaceful was king in the Golden Age. He ruled over all lands from Russia to the Rhine, and over two hundred and twenty kingdoms of two hundred and twenty subjugated kings. There was no wrong, nor want, nor thieves, nor beggars in the Golden Age. This happy period of Northern history was at that age of the world when Christ was born.
According to the Scalds, the god Odin used to appear to men. He appeared the last time at the battle of Bravalla, a contest in which the Frisians, Wends, Finns, Lapps, Danes, Saxons, Jutes, Goths, and Swedes all were engaged. The dead were so thick on the field, after this battle, that their bodies reached to the axle-wheels of the chariots of the victors. At the time of this battle Christianity was being proclaimed in England. It was approaching the North. With the battle of Bravalla the mythic age of Denmark and the North comes to an end.
I have told you something of Louis le Debonnaire, who went to die on a rock in the Rhine, that the waters might lull him to his eternal repose. He was a missionary king, and he desired nothing so much as the conversion of the world to Christ. He was the son of Charlemagne. “It is nobler to convert souls than conquer kingdoms” was his declaration of purpose. He sent missionary apostles to the North to convert Denmark. His missions at first were failures, but in the end they resulted in giving all the Northern crowns to Christ’s kingdom, that Louis loved more than his own.
The Danes in the Middle Ages became famous sea-kings. Before England, Denmark ruled the sea. One stormy day in December Gorm the Old appeared before Paris with seven hundred barks. He compelled the French king to sue for peace.
The sea-kings conquered England. Canute the Dane was king of all the regions of the northwest of Europe. His kingdom embraced Denmark, England, Sweden, Norway, Scotland, and Cumberland. Such is the second wonderful period of Denmark’s history.
THE ROYAL FAMILY OF DENMARK.Royal people, as well as “self-made men,” often undergo remarkable changes of fortune. No one, however high or low, is free from the accidents of this world. All men have surprises, either good or bad, in store for them.
Few families have experienced a more striking change in position than the present royal house of the little northern kingdom of Denmark. Twenty years ago, the present king, Christian IX., was a rather poor and obscure gentleman, of princely rank, to be sure, residing quietly in Copenhagen, and bringing up his fine family of boys and girls in a very domestic and economical fashion. He was only a remote cousin of Frederick VII., the reigning monarch, and he seemed little likely to come to the throne.
But death somewhat suddenly prepared the way for him, so that when old Frederick died, in 1863, Christian found himself king.
This, however, was but the beginning of the fortunes of this once modest and little-known household. Just before Christian came to the throne, his eldest daughter, Alexandra, a beautiful and an amiable girl, attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales. The prince became attached to her, and in due time married her.
About the same time, Christian’s second
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