Copenhagen

»The face of the land [Sjælland, Zealand] is pleasant in many places, abounding with little hills, woods and lakes in a very agreeable diversity .« Rob. Molesworth, 1694.

TO A N OLD DAN ISH SONG -BOOK

Yet dost thou recall Days departed, half-forgotten, When in dreamy youth I wandered By the Baltic, - When I paused to hear The old ballad of King Christian* Shouted from suburban taverns In the twilight.

„Welcome, my old friend, Welcome to a foreign fireside, W hile the sullen gales of autumn

Shake the windows. The ungrateful world

Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee, Since, beneath the skies of Denmark, First I met thee.

The Danish National Anthem.

H. W. Longfellow.

WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA

Saxon and Norman and Dane are we, But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee

Alfred Tennyson, 1863.

ELSINORE

My heart was one with the pleasure That laughed out around me then, — The joy of the sea sun-smitten, And the life of the strong brown men. The curve of the pearl-white shingle Ran northward to Marienlyst, And I thought of the pale Ophelia’s Sad mouth strained to be kissed. And I knew that from where I was standing, In old days long gone by, Hamlet had heard at midnight The ominous spectre cry.

„1 sat on the walls of Kronborg; And below me, along the beach, The soldiers were strolling and lounging, And spreading their linen to bleach. Their pipe-lights streamed in the sea-wind, And now and again I heard, Laughed out under yellow moustaches, The ring of a Danish word. - The sea was a tremulous opal, The sky more purple than blue, And across the Sound to Sweden The white gulls flashed and flew,

And the art of Shakspere was added To the great glad splendour there,

Fulfilling the physical beauty And glory of light and air.

Edmund W. Gosse, 1873.