When Jupiter discovered that Prometheus had bestowed this great gift on man, he punished him very severely; but Prometheus endured the punishment bravely, conscious that man would always profit by his daring. Prometheus has always been called the friend of man, and many poets have written in his honor.
HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD.
Oh, to be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear tree in the hedge
Leans to the field, and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops at the bent spray’s edge—
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
That first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
Far brighter than this gaudy melon flower!
ADONIS.
Adonis was a youth of wonderful beauty. Tall and lithe and graceful, he seemed like a young god, although he was but a mortal. He was fond of hunting, and day after day found him roaming over the hills and through the forests with his bow and arrows. His step was light and bounding, and he seemed to belong to the life of the hills as much as the trees and flowers.
Tired with the hunt, he would throw himself upon the leafy turf and look up through the great branches of the trees to the azure skies.