"How noble and admirable is this strength, amid torments and death! Could we but thus die!"
"But the rudest savages of America," said Alette, "know and practise this species of heroism; before me floats another ideal, both of life and death. The strong spirit of past ages, which you, my brother, so highly prize, could not support old age, the weary days, the silent suffering, the great portion of the lot of man. I will prize the spirit which elevates every condition of humanity; which animates the dying hero to praise, not himself, but God, and die; and which to the lonely one, who wanders through the night of life towards his unnoticed grave, imparts a strength, a peace, and enables him in his darkness to triumph over all the powers of darkness. Ah! I who deeply feel myself to be one of the weak ones in the earth, who possess no single drop of Northern heroic blood; I rejoice that we can live and die in a manner which is noble, which is beautiful, which requires not the Berserker-mood, and of which the strongest spirit need not be ashamed. Do you remember, my brother, 'The old poet' of Rein? This poem perfectly expresses the tone of mind which I would wish to possess in my last hour."
Harald recollected but faintly "The old poet," and both he and Mrs. Astrid begged Alette to make them better acquainted with him. Alette could not remember the whole of the poem, but gave an account of the most essential of its contents in these words—
"It is spring. The aged poet wanders through wood and mead, in the country where he once sung, where he had once been happy, amongst those whom he had made glad. His voice is now broken; his strength, his fire, are over. Like a shadow of that which once he was, he goes about in the young world still fresh with life. The birds of spring gather around him, welcome him with joy, and implore him to take his harp and sing to it of the new-born year, of the smiling spring. He answers—
O ye dear little singer quire,
No more can I strike the harp with fire;
No more in youth is renewed my spring;
No more the old poet can gaily sing;
And yet I am so blest—
In my heart is heavenly rest.[12]
"He wanders farther through wood and meadow. The brook murmuring between green banks, whispers to him its joy over its loosed bands, and greets the singer as the messenger of spring and freedom:
Thy harp, my fleet stream fondly haileth—
It leaps, it exults, it bewaileth;
Let it sound then—O make no delay!—
Like me the days hasten away.
"The aged singer replies:
O spring! which dost leap in thy sheen,
No more am I what I have been.
The name of the past I hear alone—
A feeble echo of days that are flown.
And yet I am so blest;
In my heart is heavenly rest.
"He wanders farther. The Dryads surround him in their dance; the Flowers present him garlands, and beg him to sing their festival; the Zephyrs, which were wont to play amid his harp-strings, seek in the bushes, and ask whether he has forgotten them there; caress the old man, and seek again, but in vain. They are about to fly, but he entreats: