Then King Admetus, one who had
Pure taste by right divine,
Decreed his singing not too bad

To hear between the cups of wine:

And so, well pleased with being soothed
Into a sweet half-sleep,

Three times his kingly beard he smoothed,
And made him viceroy o'er his sheep.

His words were simple words enough,
And yet he used them so,

That what in other mouths was rough
In his seemed musical and low.

Men called him but a shiftless youth,
In whom no good they saw ;
And yet, unwittingly, in truth,

They made his careless words their law.

They knew not how he learned at all,

For idly, hour by hour,

He sat and watched the dead leaves fall,

Or mused upon a common flower.

It seemed the loveliness of things

Did teach him all their use,

For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, He found a healing power profuse.

Men granted that his speech was wise,

But, when a glance they caught

THE SISTERS

Of his slim grace and woman's eyes,

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They laughed, and called him good-for-nought.

Yet after he was dead and gone,

And e'en his memory dim,

Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,

More full of love, because of him.

And day by day more holy grew
Each spot where he had trod,

Till after-poets only knew

Their first-born brother as a god.

James Russell Lowell.

THE SISTERS

ANNIE and Rhoda, sisters twain,
Woke in the night to the sound of rain,

The rush of wind, the ramp and roar
Of great waves climbing a rocky shore.

Annie rose up in her bed-gown white,
And looked out into the storm and night.

"Hush, and hearken!" she cried in fear, "Hearest thou nothing, sister dear?"

"I hear the sea, and the plash of rain, And roar of the northeast hurricane.

"Get thee back to the bed so warm, No good comes of watching a storm.

"What is it to thee, I fain would know, That waves are roaring and wild winds blow?

"No lover of thine 's afloat to miss

The harbor-lights on a night like this."

"But I heard a voice cry out my name; Up from the sea on the wind it came!

"Twice and thrice have I heard it call, And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!"

On her pillow the sister tossed her head, "Hall of the Heron is safe," she said.

"In the tautest schooner that ever swam He rides at anchor in Annisquam.

"And if in peril from swamping sea

Or lee shore rocks, would he call on thee?"

But the girl heard only the wind and tide,
And wringing her small white hands she cried:

"O sister Rhoda, there's something wrong; I hear it again, so loud and long.

Annie! Annie!' I hear it call,

And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!"

THE SISTERS

Up sprang the elder, with eyes aflame, "Thou liest! He never would call thy name!

"If he did, I would pray the wind and sea

To keep him forever from thee and me!"

Then out of the sea blew a dreadful blast;
Like the cry of a dying man it passed.

The young girl hushed on her lips a groan,
But through her tears a strange light shone,

The solemn joy of her heart's release
To own and cherish its love in peace.

"Dearest!" she whispered, under breath, "Life was a lie, but true is death.

"The love I hid from myself away
Shall crown me now in the light of day.

"My ears shall never to wooer list, Never by lover my lips be kissed.

"Sacred to thee am I henceforth, Thou in heaven and I on earth!"

She came and stood by her sister's bed: "Hall of the Heron is dead!" she said.

"The wind and the waves their work have done, We shall see him no more beneath the sun.

"Little will reck that heart of thine,

It loved him not with a love like mine.

"I, for his sake, were he but here,
Could hem and 'broider thy bridal gear,

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Though hands should tremble, and eyes be wet, And stitch for stitch in my heart be set.

"But now my soul with his soul I wed;

Thine the living, and mine the dead!"

John Greenleaf Whittier.

THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH CAPE

A Leaf from King Alfred's Orosius

OTHERE, the old sea-captain,

Who dwelt in Helgoland,

To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth,
Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth,

Which he held in his brown right hand.

His figure was tall and stately,

Like a boy's his eye appeared;

His hair was yellow as hay,
But threads of a silvery gray
Gleamed in his tawny beard.

Hearty and hale was Othere,

His cheek had the color of oak;
With a kind of laugh in his speech,