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»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
„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.
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.
The Danish National Anthem.
„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,
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.
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.
Saxon and Norman and Dane are we,
But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee
Alfred Tennyson, 1863.
H. W. Longfellow.
WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA
ELSINORE