"I've been in Upsala," said the Moon: "I looked down upon the
great plain covered with coarse grass, and upon the barren fields. I
mirrored my face in the Tyris river, while the steamboat drove the
fish into the rushes. Beneath me floated the waves, throwing long
shadows on the so-called graves of Odin, Thor, and Friga. In the
scanty turf that covers the hill-side names have been cut. There is no
monument here, no memorial on which the traveller can have his name
carved, no rocky wall on whose surface he can get it painted; so
visitors have the turf cut away for that purpose. The naked earth
peers through in the form of great letters and names; these form a
network over the whole hill. Here is an immortality, which lasts
till the fresh turf grows!
"Up on the hill stood a man, a poet. He emptied the mead horn with
the broad silver rim, and murmured a name. He begged the winds not
to betray him, but I heard the name. I knew it. A count's coronet
sparkles above it, and therefore he did not speak it out. I smiled,
for I knew that a poet's crown adorns his own name. The nobility of
Eleanora d'Este is attached to the name of Tasso. And I also know
where the Rose of Beauty blooms!"
Thus spake the Moon, and a cloud came between us. May no cloud
separate the poet from the rose!