KING CHRISTIAN.

A NATIONAL SONG OF DENMARK.

FROM THE DANISH OF JOHANNES EVALD.

KING CHRISTIAN stood by the lofty mast,

In mist and smoke;

His sword was hammering so fast,

Through Gothic helm and brain it passed;

Then sank each hostile hulk and mast,

In mist and smoke.

"Fly!" shouted they, "fly, he who can!

Who braves of Denmark's Christian

The stroke?"

Nils Juel gave heed to the tempest's roar,

Now is the hour!

He hoisted his blood-red flag once more,
And smote upon the foe full sore,

And shouted loud, through the tempest's roar,

"Now is the hour!"

"Fly!" shouted they, "for shelter fly!

Of Denmark's Juel who can defy

The power?"

North Sea! a glimpse of Wessel rent

Thy murky sky!

Then champions to thine arms were sent;
Terror and Death glared where he went;

From the waves was heard a wail, that rent

Thy murky sky!

From Denmark, thunders Tordenskiol',

Let each to Heaven commend his soul,

And fly!

Path of the Dane to fame and might!

Dark-rolling wave!

Receive thy friend, who, scorning flight,
Goes to meet danger with despite,

Proudly as thou the tempest's might,
Dark-rolling wave!

And amid pleasures and alarms,

And war and victory, be thine arms
My grave!*

In

* Nils Juel was a celebrated Danish Admiral, and Peder Wessel a Vice-Admiral, who for his great prowess received the popular title of Tordenskiold, or Thunder-shield. childhood he was a tailor's apprentice, and rose to his high rank before the age of twenty-eight, when he was killed in a duel.

THE HAPPIEST LAND.

FRAGMENT OF A MODERN BALLAD.

FROM THE GERMAN.

THERE sat one day in quiet,

By an alehouse on the Rhine,

Four hale and hearty fellows,
And drank the precious wine.

The landlord's daughter filled their cups,

Around the rustic board;

Then sat they all so calm and still,

And spake not one rude word.

But, when the maid departed,

A Swabian raised his hand,

And cried, all hot and flushed with wine, "Long live the Swabian land!

"The greatest kingdom upon earth
Cannot with that compare;

With all the stout and hardy men
And the nut-brown maidens there."

"Ha!" cried a Saxon, laughing,

And dashed his beard with wine;

"I had rather live in Lapland,

Than that Swabian land of thine!

"The goodliest land on all this earth,

It is the Saxon land!

There have I as many maidens

As fingers on this hand!"