Hylas first saw Herakles,
Looming vast as huge Orion,
Tawny in his skin of lion;

While through interspace of leaves,
Through the network autumn weaves,
Fell bronze sunshine and bronze leaves
On the lion skin with its paws,
Dangling, fringed with crescent claws.

Softly all the flock were bleating
As he gave the lad good greeting,
Rubbing down with leaves the club,
Thick as thickest chariot hub-
Hylas stood with golden locks,
Glowing 'mid the lichened rocks,
Laughing in the silver beeches,
White as milk and tanned like peaches.
Then the hero loved the lad
For his beauty made him glad,
And he took him on his knees;
Tender was huge Herakles,
Telling him of strange journeys
To the far Hesperides,
Crossing oceans in a bowl,

Till he won him heart and soul.

So these two were friends, forever,
Never seen apart, together
Were they all that winter weather.
And the hero taught the youth
How to shoot and tell the truth,
How to drive a furrow straight,
Plowing, plowing very early
When the frosty grass was curly-
Taught him how to play the lyre,
Till each wire and wire and wire
Sang together like a choir.
And at night young Hylas crept
In the lion skin where he slept,
Where the lowing oxen team
Stood beneath the smoky beam,
Slept beside the hero clipt
By the giant, downy lipped.

Centuries have fled away
Since the hero came that day
To the little beechwood gray
Where young Hylas was at play.
But I shall, as poets may,
Wreathe these roses for his head,
For his beauty is not dead.

Hylas went with Herakles,
Dancing to the dancing seas,
And he stood high in the bow,
Golden by the carven prow,
Or he lay within the furls
With the sea damps on his curls.
But at home his mother wept
With her long hair on the floor,
By the hearth where he had slept,
For her woman's heart was sore;
Saying, "He is gone from me!
Gone across the sounding sea!
Ai! Ai! Woe is me!

Alas! Alas! for thee,
Hylas Alas!"

With the soft south wind to follow
All the day the sail was hollow,
While the marvelous Orpheus sang,
Till the water furrows rang—
Never man sang as he sang-
Never man has sung the same-
And the ship flew till they came
Where the olive trees are gaunt
By the winding Hellespont,
And the Cian oxen wear

Water bright the bronze plowshare.

On a fallow meadow hollow,
Where the Cian cattle wallow,
There they landed two by two;
They the grass and rushes strew
For their bed,

Leaves and pointed flag stocks callow,
Foot and head.

And the evening coming on
Herakles and Telamon

Set the supper fires upleaping

And the shadows swooping, sweeping
Overhead.

Meanwhile, Hylas with a vase
Wandered inland for a ways,
Hoping there to fill his bronze,
Girt about with little fawns,
Polished.

And around and twice around it,

Where an inwrought girdle bound it,
Fled the rout of chaste Diana,

Goddess led.

Inland in a cup-shaped vale

Willow swart and galingale

Grew with swallow wart, and sparsley,
Maiden hair and blooming parsley.
And the shallow's level glass
Mirrored back the yellow grass
Where the swallow dipped his wings,
Making rings on rings in rings.
There a nymph dance was afoot
Where the country people put
Cloth and oaten cakes and bread
For the water spirits dread-—
Two and two and in and out,
Three and two, around about,

Hands around, and then they vanished,
Leaving Hylas there astonished.

But at last he stooped to dip
And the eager water slipped,
Stuttering past the metal lip,
Choking like a sunk bell rung---
Suddenly white nymph hands clung
Cold as iron about his arm
Till he cried out in alarm.

Gave a little, silver cry

And the swallow skimming nigh

Darted higher in the sky,
And the echo when he spoke-
Awoke.

VOL. CCXII-NO. 779.

35

Then it was that Herakles,
For his Hylas ill at ease,
Left the heroes by the fire,
Strung his bowstring taut as wire,
Went to look for Hylas inland,
Past a little, rocky headland,
Rising higher ever higher.

Till he found the cup-shaped vale,
Where he called without avail,
Shouting loudly, "Hylas, Hylas,"
Echo answered back, "Alas,"
Echo answered very slowly,
Speaking sorrowfully and lowly,
When he called the lad, "Hy-las,"
Hollow echo said, "Alas."

But he never found him more
On the hill or by the shore,
On the upland, on the downland,
Never found him where he lay
Down among the boulders gray,
Limp among the watery rocks
Where the lily raised its chalice

And the dread nymphs combed his locks,
Pale Nycheia, April-eyed,

And white Eunice and Malis.

For his voice came down to these
Vague as April through the trees,

Filtered through the water clear,
Very faint but strangely near,
Very thin-

And no echo could they hear,
Only ripples' silver din

And the dull splash of an otter;
Echo cannot live in water.

But that echo comes to me
Down through half eternity,
Crying out, "Alas! Alas!"

For all beauty that must pass
Like a picture from a glass-

When Time breathes it is not there

Bony hands and coffined hair!
Alas! Alas! Alas!

-HERVEY ALLEN.

FOREBODING

HORTENSE FLEXNER

There is an ache close to the heart of things.
This night, and tears are in the air,
A lurking heaviness the far wind brings,

And blows across the grayness of the square.
I do not know-tomorrow will be May,

And yet there is no song, no whispering mirth, Only a burden left behind the day,

A shadow fallen dimly on the earth.

Is it that Spring, out-done with flowers and light,
Has flung herself upon the grass to rest,
And dreamed, as I, of drouth and storm and blight
On growing things-her gift with fruit unblest,
And waking in the dusk from this strange sleep,
Found in her laughing heart mad tears to weep?

A THOUGHT AFTER TAPS

S. FOSTER DAMON

When we were smiling in our last goodbyes,
I hid your handkerchief deep in my coat;
And then a sudden sickness in my throat
Swept over me, a swift, complete surprise.
That was the first time that I saw your eyes,
The first time that I felt their tender note
Making the entire world grow dim, remote;
And in my breast it seemed like star-rise.

I feel you still, a firm, strong tremulo,

Such as the trees feel in the early spring

When the sap drips from the snapped boughs into the snow;
While I am to you no more than an old tune

Five years worn-out, whose still familiar swing

Faintly recalls some evening under the moon.

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