When Norway Would Not Help (Easter Eve, 1864)

(See Note 24)

When Kattegat now or the Belt you sail,
    No more will you sight
The Danish proud frigate, no more will you hail
    The red and white;
No more will the ringing command be heard
    In Wessel's tongue,
No rollicking music, no jocund word,
    'Neath Dannebrog sung.
No dance will you see, no laughter meet,
    As the white sails shine,
From mast and from stern no garland you greet,
    Of arts the sign.
But all that we owned of the treasures on board
    The deeps now hold;
One sad winter night to the sea-waves were poured
    Our memories old.

It was that same night, when the frigate nigh
    To Norway's land
Distress-guns was firing, the surf running high
    With sea-weed and sand.
To help from the harbor men put out boats,
    But they turn back, ...
The frigate toward Germany drifting floats,
    A broken wrack!
What once had been ours overboard was strown,
    Each kinship mark
Was quickly removed, to the sea it was thrown
    With curses stark!
The Northern lion, that figure-head gray,
    Now had to fall,
In pieces 'twas hewn, and the frigate lay
    Like a shattered wall.
        ...
Repaired and refitted, its canvas it spread
    Near Germany's coast,
With black-yellow flag and an eagle dread
    In the lion's post.
When sailing we Kattegat sweep with our eyes,
    'T is still evermore.
But a German admiral's frigate lies
    Near Scania's shore.