THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS.

THERE came a youth upon the earth,

Some thousand years ago,

Whose slender hands were nothing worth, Whether to plough, or reap, or sow.

He made a lyre, and drew therefrom

Music so strange and rich,

That all men loved to hear, and some
Muttered of fagots for a witch.

But 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, long hour after 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

Of his slim grace and woman's eyes,

They laughed, and called him good-for naught.

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.

1842.

THE TOKEN.

It is a mere wild rosebud,

Quite sallow now, and dry,

Yet there's something wondrous in it,-
Some gleams of days gone by,-

Dear sights and sounds that are to me

The finger-posts of memory,

And stir

my heart's blood far below

Its short-lived waves of joy and woe.

Lips must fade and roses wither,

All sweet times be o'er,—

They only smile, and, murmuring "Thither!"

Stay with us no more:

And yet ofttimes a look or smile,
Forgotten in a kiss's while,

Years after from the dark will start,

And flash across the trembling heart.

Thou hast given me many roses,

But never one, like this,

O'erfloods both sense and spirit
With such a deep, wild bliss
We must have instincts that glean up
Sparse drops of this life in the cup,

Whose taste shall give us all that we

Can prove of immortality.

Earth's stablest things are shadows,

And, in this life to come,

Haply some chance-saved trifle

May tell of this old home:

As now sometimes we seem to find,

In a dark crevice of the mind,

Some relic, which, long pondered o'er,

Hints faintly at a life before.