FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   378   379   380   381   382   383   384   385   386   387   388   389   390   391   392   393   394   395   396   397   398   399   400   401   402  
403   404   405   406   407   408   409   410   411   412   413   414   415   416   417   418   419   420   421   422   423   424   425   426   427   >>   >|  
a ragged blouse fought among the older insurgents. Mortally wounded with several bayonet thrusts, he sank down. This happened in the throne-room. They laid the bleeding youth upon the throne of France, wrapped the velvet around his wounds, and his blood streamed forth upon the imperial purple. There was a picture! The splendid hall, the fighting groups! A torn flag upon the ground, the tricolor was waving above the bayonets, and on the throne lay the poor lad with the pale glorified countenance, his eyes turned towards the sky, his limbs writhing in the death agony, his breast bare, and his poor tattered clothing half hidden by the rich velvet embroidered with silver lilies. At the boy's cradle a prophecy had been spoken: 'He will die on the throne of France!' The mother's heart dreamt of a second Napoleon. "My beams have kissed the wreath of immortelles on his grave, and this night they kissed the forehead of the old grandame, while in a dream the picture floated before her which thou mayest draw--the poor boy on the throne of France." SIXTH EVENING "I've been in Upsala," said the Moon: "I looked down upon the great plain covered with coarse grass, and upon the barren fields. I mirrored my face in the Tyris river, while the steamboat drove the fish into the rushes. Beneath me floated the waves, throwing long shadows on the so-called graves of Odin, Thor, and Friga. In the scanty turf that covers the hill-side names have been cut. There is no monument here, no memorial on which the traveller can have his name carved, no rocky wall on whose surface he can get it painted; so visitors have the turf cut away for that purpose. The naked earth peers through in the form of great letters and names; these form a network over the whole hill. Here is an immortality, which lasts till the fresh turf grows! "Up on the hill stood a man, a poet. He emptied the mead horn with the broad silver rim, and murmured a name. He begged the winds not to betray him, but I heard the name. I knew it. A count's coronet sparkles above it, and therefore he did not speak it out. I smiled, for I knew that a poet's crown adorns his own name. The nobility of Eleanora d'Este is attached to the name of Tasso. And I also know where the Rose of Beauty blooms!" Thus spake the Moon, and a cloud came between us. May no cloud separate the poet from the rose! SEVENTH EVENING "Along the margin of the shore stretches a forest of firs and beech
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   378   379   380   381   382   383   384   385   386   387   388   389   390   391   392   393   394   395   396   397   398   399   400   401   402  
403   404   405   406   407   408   409   410   411   412   413   414   415   416   417   418   419   420   421   422   423   424   425   426   427   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

throne

 

France

 
EVENING
 

kissed

 

floated

 

picture

 

velvet

 

silver

 

immortality

 

network


letters

 
shadows
 
surface
 

memorial

 
traveller
 
covers
 

scanty

 

monument

 

called

 

painted


visitors

 

graves

 

carved

 

purpose

 

Beauty

 

blooms

 

attached

 

margin

 

stretches

 
forest

SEVENTH

 

separate

 
Eleanora
 

nobility

 

murmured

 
begged
 

emptied

 
betray
 

smiled

 
adorns

coronet

 

sparkles

 

covered

 
bayonets
 

countenance

 

glorified

 
waving
 

tricolor

 

groups

 
fighting