瓦尔都窗前的一瞥

BY THE ALMSHOUSE WINDOW. NEAR the grass covered rampart which encircles Copenhagen lies

a great red house. Balsams and other flowers greet us from the

long rows of windows in the house, whose interior is sufficiently

poverty stricken; and poor and old are the people who inhabit it.

The building is the Warton Almshouse. Look! at the

window there leans an old maid. She plucks the withered leaf from

the balsam, and looks at the grass covered rampart, on which

many children are playing. What is the old maid thinking of? A

whole life drama is unfolding itself before her inward gaze.

"The poor little children, how happy they are how merrily they

play and romp together! What red cheeks and what angels' eyes!

but they have no shoes nor stockings. They dance on the green

rampart, just on the place where, according to the old story, the

ground always sank in, and where a sportive, frolicsome child had

been lured by means of flowers, toys and sweetmeats into an open

grave ready dug for it, and which was afterwards closed over the

child; and from that moment, the old story says, the ground gave

way no longer, the mound remained firm and fast, and was quickly

covered with the green turf. The little people who now play on

that spot know nothing of the old tale, else would they fancy they

heard a child crying deep below the earth, and the dewdrops on

each blade of grass would be to them tears of woe. Nor do they

know anything of the Danish King who here, in the face of the

coming foe, took an oath before all his trembling courtiers that he

would hold out with the citizens of his capital, and die here in his

nest; they know nothing of the men who have fought here, or of the

women who from here have drenched with boiling water the

enemy, clad in white, and 'biding in the snow to surprise the city. "No! the poor little ones are playing with light, childish spirits.

Play on, play on, thou little maiden! Soon the years will come

yes, those glorious years. The priestly hands have been laid on the

candidates for confirmation; hand in hand they walk on the green

rampart. Thou hast a white frock on; it has cost thy mother much

labor, and yet it is only cut down for thee out of an old larger dress!

You will also wear a red shawl; and what if it hang too far down?

People will only see how large, how very large it is. You are

thinking of your dress, and of the Giver of all good so glorious is

it to wander on the green rampart! "And the years roll by;

they have no lack of dark days, but you have your cheerful young

spirit, and you have gained a friend you know not how. You met,

oh, how often! You walk together on the rampart in the fresh

spring, on the high days and holidays, when all the world come out

to walk upon the ramparts, and all the bells of the church steeples seem to be singing a song of praise for the coming spring. "Scarcely have the violets come forth, but there on the rampart, just opposite the beautiful Castle of Rosenberg, there is a tree bright with the first green buds. Every year this tree sends forth fresh green shoots. Alas! It is not so with the human heart! Dark mists, more in number than those that cover the northern skies, cloud the human heart. Poor child! thy friend's bridal chamber is a black coffin, and thou becomest an old maid. From the almshouse window, behind the balsams, thou shalt look on the merry children at play, and shalt see thine own history renewed. " And tha t is the life drama that passes before the old maid while she looks out upon the rampart, the green, sunny rampart, where the children, with their red cheeks and bare shoeless feet, are rejoicing merrily, like the other free little birds. THE END .