Tal atter, Lysets Engel! thi du straaler
i Natten saa høiherlig over mig
som en af Nattens vingede Cheruber
for dødeliges himmelvendte Øine, etc.

But lines like these have an admirable and perfect loveliness:

naar han skrid um dan seinleg-sigand' Skyi
og sigler yver høge Himmels Barmen.

Aasen busied himself for some years with this effort to naturalize his
Landsmaal in all the forms of literature. Apparently this was always
uppermost in his thoughts. We find him trying himself in this sort of
work in the years before and after the publication of _Prøver af
Landsmaalet_. In _Skrifter i Samling_ is printed another little fragment
of _Romeo and Juliet_, which the editor, without giving his reasons,
assigns to a date earlier than that of the balcony scene. It is
Mercutio's description of Queen Mab (Act I, Sc. 4). This is decidedly
more successful than the other. The vocabulary of the Norwegian dialects
is rich in words of fairy-lore, and one who knew this word treasure as
Aasen did could render the fancies of Mercutio with something very near
the exuberance of Shakespeare himself:

No ser eg vel, at ho hev' vore hjaa deg
ho gamle Mabba, Nærkona aat Vettom.
So lita som ein Adelstein i Ringen
paa fremste Fingren paa ein verdug Raadsmann,
ho kjøyrer kring med smaa Soldumbe-Flokar
paa Nasanna aat Folk, dan Tid dei søv.
Hjulspikann' henna er av Kongleføter,