the army and navy, all the Icelanders in Copenhagen, and about 8000 other persons, formed the funeral procession. The streets through which it passed were lined with the different companies of trades, and regiments from the garrison; and the whole distance to the Frue-Kirke was, according to an ancient Scandinavian custom, strewed with white sand, interspersed with juniper leaves. At the entrance to the church the king, in deep mourning, received the corpse; and when it had been placed on a catafalque, Oehlenschlæger's requiem, the music by Glaser, was sung:
CHORUS.
Crowds upon crowds are gathering round
The sacred spot where rests a bier;
Of a people's wail there comes the sound—
O fatherland! what mourn you here?
A prince—a hero—snatched away?
No, Denmark sighs; and yet his name
Stands on the brightest page of fame,
Whom here, alas! we weep to-day.
RECITATIVE.
On an ice-bound shore, 'neath a dark stormy sky,
Where winter doth ever his festival keep;
Round the graves where thy hero-ancestors[1] lie,
The snow-flakes fall, and the wild winds sleep.
Like an angel choir from the heavenly halls
Have their spirits descended, and sang to thee—
"Thou must come with us hence, for thy Maker calls."
......
CONCLUDING CHORUS.
A lofty spirit in his bosom woke.
As if a voice had called him from above;
On his mind’s eye a heavenly vision broke.
And he beheld the Saviour of his love—
A radiant form—standing encircled by
The favoured Twelve. 'Twas given him to conceive
His looks on earth; and theirs, who to the sky
Saw Him ascend, and thus learned to believe.
Now, round the spot where he reposes, stand
Those statues grand and beautiful; and one,
Even Christ himself, seems to stretch forth his hand
With smile benignant, saying, "Come, my son!"
While the body was being consigned to its last abode, hundreds of students, assembled in the churchyard, chanted the following lines by Hans Christian Andersen, the music by Hartmann:
Approach this coffin, ye of humble birth.
And learn from his success what talent may
Achieve in time, when 'tis combined with worth.
"Was he not one of us?" ye proudly say;
- ↑ This probably alludes to Thorwaldsen’s real or supposed descent, by the female line, from Thorfinn, a member of a rich and powerful family in Iceland, who was one of the early navigators to Greenland, and discoverers of Vinland—a portion of North America, about the exact locality of which northern antiquaries disagree, some placing it in what is now Massachusetts, others, with less probability of correctness, in Labrador. Thorwaldsen’s father was a poor Icelandic sculptor, whose principal employment, after he settled in Copenhagen, was to carve figure-heads for ships. Thorfinn commanded a ship, or expedition, from Iceland to Greenland, in the year 1006.
