Beautiful songs resound as we approach: we hear Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. The melody's varied beacon makes known to us where Upsala's students are assembled. The song proceeds from the assembly-room--from the tavern saloon, and like serenades in the silent evening, when a young friend departs, or a dear guest is honoured. Glorious melodies! ye enthral, so that we forget that the sun goes down, and the moon rises.
"Herre min Gud hvad din Månen lyser Se, hvilken Glands ut ofver Land och Stad!"
"Högt opp i Slottet hvarenda ruta Blixtrar some vore den en ädelsten."[O]
[Footnote O: Lord, my God, how Thy moon shines! See what lustre over land and city! High up in the palace every pane glistens as if it were a gem.]
Up thither then is our way! lead us, memory's sprite, into the palace, the courteous governor of Upland's dwelling; mild glances greet us; we see dear beings in a happy circle, and all the leading characters of Upsala. We again see him whose cunning quickened our perceptions as to the mysteries of vegetable life, so that even the toad-stool is unveiled to us as a building more artfully constructed than the labyrinths of the olden time. We see "The Flowers'" singer, he who led us to "The Island of Bliss;" we meet with him whose popular lays are borne on melodies into the world; his wife by his side. That quiet, gentle woman with those faithful eyes is the daughter of Frithiof's bard; we see noble men and women, ladies of the high nobility, with sounding and significant family names with _silver_ and _lilies_,--_stars_ and _swords_.
Hark! listen to that lively song. Gunnar Wennerberg, Gluntarra's poet and composer, sings his songs with Boronees,[P] and they acquire a dramatic life and reality.
[Footnote P: Gluntarra duets, by Gunnar Wennerberg.]
How spiritual and enjoyable! one becomes happy here, one feels proud of the age one lives in, happy in being distant from the horrible tragedies that history speaks of within these walls.
We can hear about them when the song is silent, when those friendly forms disappear, and the festal lights are extinguished: from the pages of history that tale resounds with a clang of horror. It was in those times, which the many still call poetic--the romantic middle ages--that bards sang of its most brilliant periods, and covered with the radiance of their genius the sanguinary gulf of brutality and superstition. Terror seizes us in Upsala's palace: we stand in the vaulted hall, the wax tapers burn from the walls, and King Erik the Fourteenth sits with Saul's dark despondency, with Cain's wild looks. Niels Sture occupies his thoughts, the recollection of injustice exercised against him lashes his conscience with scourges and scorpions, as deadly terrible as they are revealed to us in the page of history.