The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
We saw after this, going and returning, many bergs, hundreds in all.
With one of the finest, a little more broken and varied than those
previously described, we came up at a little past noon, and the schooner
stood off and on while Bradford went in the boat to sketch it in
color,--Captain Handy's steady and skilful hand upon the sculling-oar.
Bradford worked at it like a beaver all the afternoon, and then directed
the schooner to lie to through the night, that he might resume his task
in the morning,--coveting especially the effects of early light The
ardent man was off before three o'clock. Nature was kind to him; he
sketched the berg under a dawn of amber and scarlet, followed by floods
on floods of morning gold; and returned to breakfast, after five hours'
work, half in rapture and half in despair. The colors, above all, the
purples, were inconceivable, he said, and there was no use trying to
render them. I reminded him of Ruskin's brave words:--"He that is not
appalled by his tasks will do nothing great." But his was an April
despair, after all, with rifted clouds and spring sunshine pouring
through.
Another memorable one was seen outside while we were in harbor,
storm-bound. A vast arch went through the very heart of it, while each
end rose to a pinnacle,--the arch blue, blue! We were going out to it;
but, during the second night of storm, its strength broke, and beneath
blinding snow there remained only a mad dance of waves over the wreck of
its majesty.
There was another, curiously striped with diagonal dirt-bands, whose
fellowship, however, the greens and purples did not disdain.
Another had the shape of three immense towers, seeming to _stand on the
water_, more than a hundred feet of sea rolling between. The tallest
tower could not be much less than two hundred feet in height; the others
slightly, just perceptibly, lower. This was seen in rain, and the
purples here were more crystalline and shining than any others which I
observed.
These towers were seen on our last day among the bergs. In my memory
they are monumental. They stand there, a purple trinity, to commemorate
the terrors and glories that I shall behold no more.
KALLUNDBORG CHURCH.
"Tie stille, barn min!
Imorgen kommer Fin,
Fa'er din,
Og gi'er dig Esbern Snares oeine og hjerte at lege med!"
_Zealand Rhyme._
"Build at Kallundborg by the sea
A church as stately as church may be,
And there shalt thou wed my daughter fair,"
Said the Lord of Nesvek to Esbern Snare.
And the Baron laughed. But Esbern said,
"Though I lose my soul, I will Helva wed!"
And off he strode, in his pride of will,
To the Troll who dwelt in Ulshoi hill.
"Build, O Troll, a church for me
At Kallundborg by the mighty sea;
Build it stately, and build it fair,
Build it quickly," said Esbern Snare.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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