near the grass-covered rampart which encircles copenhagen lies a great red house. balsams and other flowers greet us from the long rows of windows in the house, whose interior is sufficiently poverty-stricken; and poor and old are the people who inhabit it. the building is the warton almshouse.

look! at the window there leans an old maid. she plucks the withered leaf from the balsam, and looks at the grass-covered rampart, on which many children are playing. what is the old maid thinking of? a whole life drama is unfolding itself before her inward gaze.

"the poor little children, how happy they are- how merrily they play and romp together! what red cheeks and what angels` eyes! but they have no shoes nor stockings. they dance on the green rampart, just on the place where, according to the old story, the ground always sank in, and where a sportive, frolicsome child had been lured by means of flowers, toys and sweetmeats into an open grave ready dug for it, and which was afterwards closed over the child; and from that moment, the old story says, the ground gave way no longer, the mound remained firm and fast, and was quickly covered with the green turf. the little people who now play on that spot know nothing of the old tale, else would they fancy they heard a child crying deep below the earth, and the dewdrops on each blade of grass would be to them tears of woe. nor do they know anything of the danish king who here, in the face of the coming foe, took an oath before all his trembling courtiers that he would hold out with the citizens of his capital, and die here in his nest; they know nothing of the men who have fought here, or of the women who from here have drenched with boiling water the enemy, clad in white, and `biding in the snow to surprise the city.

编辑:Liuxuepaper.Com

作文地带知识拓展:

• 英语（English）属于印欧语系日耳曼语族西日耳曼语支，最早被中世纪的英国使用，并因其广阔的殖民地而成为世界使用面积最广的语言。英国人的祖先盎格鲁部落是后来迁移到大不列颠岛地区的日耳曼部落之一，称为英格兰。这两个名字都来自波罗地海半岛的Anglia。该语言与弗里斯兰语和下撒克森语密切相关，其词汇受到其他日耳曼语族语言的影响，尤其是北欧语（北日耳曼语），并在很大程度上由拉丁文和法文撰写。