Library of the Worlds Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 | Page 9

bowl of wine The richest drop on Bacchus's shrine! For Death may come, with brow unpleasant, May come when least we wish him present, And beckon to the sable shore, And grimly bid us--drink no more!
Moore's Translation.
A LOVER'S SIGH
The Phrygian rock that braves the storm Was once a weeping matron's form; And Procne, hapless, frantic maid, Is now a swallow in the shade. Oh that a mirror's form were mine, To sparkle with that smile divine; And like my heart I then should be, Reflecting thee, and only thee! Or could I be the robe which holds That graceful form within its folds; Or, turned into a fountain, lave Thy beauties in my circling wave; Or, better still, the zone that lies Warm to thy breast, and feels its sighs! Or like those envious pearls that show So faintly round that neck of snow! Yes, I would be a happy gem, Like them to hang, to fade like them. What more would thy Anacreon be? Oh, anything that touches thee, Nay, sandals for those airy feet-- Thus to be pressed by thee were sweet!
Moore's Translation.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
(1805-1875)
BY BENJAMIN W. WELLS
The place of Hans Christian Andersen in literature is that of the "Children's Poet," though his best poetry is prose. He was born in the ancient Danish city of Odense, on April 2d, 1805, of poor and shiftless parents. He had little regular instruction, and few childish associates. His youthful imagination was first stimulated by La Fontaine's 'Fables' and the 'Arabian Nights,' and he showed very early a dramatic instinct, trying to act and even to imitate Shakespeare, though, as he says, "hardly able to spell a single word correctly." It was therefore natural that the visit of a dramatic company to Odense, in 1818, should fire his fancy to seek his theatrical fortune in Copenhagen; whither he went in September, 1819, with fifteen dollars in his pocket and a letter of introduction to a danseuse at the Royal Theatre, who not unnaturally took her strange visitor for a lunatic, and showed him the door. For four years he labored diligently, suffered acutely, and produced nothing of value; though he gained some influential friends, who persuaded the king to grant him a scholarship for three years, that he might prepare for the university.
Though he was neither a brilliant nor a docile pupil, he did not exhaust the generous patience of his friends, who in 1829 enabled him to publish by subscription his first book, 'A Journey on Foot from Holm Canal to the East Point of Amager' a fantastic arabesque, partly plagiarized and partly parodied from the German romanticists, but with a na?veté that might have disarmed criticism.
In 1831 there followed a volume of poems, the sentimental and rather mawkish 'Fantasies and Sketches,' product of a journey in Jutland and of a silly love affair. This book was so harshly criticized that he resolved to seek a refuge and new literary inspiration in a tour to Germany; for all through his life, traveling was Andersen's stimulus and distraction, so that he compares himself, later, to a pendulum "bound to go backward and forward, tic, toc, tic, toc, till the clock stops, and down I lie."
[Illustration: HANS CHR. ANDERSEN.]
This German tour inspired his first worthy book, 'Silhouettes,' with some really admirable pages of description. His success encouraged him to attempt the drama again, where he failed once more, and betook himself for relief to Paris and Italy, with a brief stay in the Jura Mountains, which is delightfully described in his novel, 'O.T.'
Italy had on him much the same clarifying effect that it had on Goethe; and his next book, the novel 'Improvisatore' (1835), achieved and deserved a European recognition. Within ten years the book was translated into six languages. It bears the mark of its date in its romantic sentiments. There is indeed no firm character-drawing, here or in any of his novels; but the book still claims attention for its exquisite descriptions of Italian life and scenery.
The year 1835 saw also Andersen's first essay in the 'Wonder Stories' which were to give him his lasting title to grateful remembrance. He did not think highly of this work at the time, though his little volume contained the now-classic 'Tinderbox,' and 'Big Claus and Little Claus.' Indeed, he always chafed a little at the modest fame of a writer for children; but he continued for thirty-seven years to publish those graceful fancies, which in their little domain still hold the first rank, and certainly gave the freest scope to Andersen's qualities, while they masked his faults and limitations.
He turned again from this "sleight of hand with Fancy's golden apples," to the novel, in the 'O.T.' (1836), which marks no advance on the 'Improvisatore'; and in the next year he published his best