an authority which no man dared or desired to question. But he was severely injured by an accidental explosion of gunpowder. Surgical aid was not in the colony. Smith needed to go to England, and once more hungry ruin settled down upon Virginia. In six months the five hundred men whom Smith had left dwindled to sixty. These were already embarked and departing when they were met by Lord Delaware, the new governor. Once more the colony was saved. Years of quiet growth succeeded.

THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

James Russell Lowell was born in 1819, in Cambridge, Mass. He died in 1891. He was one of the leading American poets. Many of his minor poems are exceedingly beautiful. Some of them will be given in this and following volumes. Of the longer poems "The Vision of Sir Launfal" is, perhaps, the most beautiful. Nothing that Mr. Lowell ever wrote aroused more interest than "The Biglow Papers," though interest in them has somewhat lessened as the conditions that caused their publication have long since passed away.

THERE came a youth upon the earth,

Some thousand years ago,

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

Upon an empty tortoise shell

He stretched some cords, and drew

Music that made men's bosoms swell

Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew.

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
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.

THREE WORDS OF STRENGTH

JOHANN FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER

Schiller, the great national poet of Germany, was born at Marbach in 1759. He first studied law, then medicine; then the works of Shakespeare, Rousseau, and Goethe led him to give himself to literature. He wrote the "History of the Thirty Years' War," "Wallenstein," which is perhaps his greatest work, many dramas, of which "William Tell" is the most popular, and a great number of smaller works. He died in 1805.

HERE are three lessons I would write,

THERE

Three words, as with a burning pen,

In tracings of eternal light,

Upon the hearts of men.

Have Hope. Though clouds environ round,
And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put off the shadow from thy brow:
No night but hath its morn.

Have Faith.

Where'er thy bark is driven,

The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth, Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven,

The inhabitants of earth.

THE

As through an Alpine village passed A youth who bore, mid snow and ice, A banner with the strange device,

Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath.
And like a silver clarion rung

The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,

66

Excelsior!

Try not the pass!" the old man said; "Dark lowers the tempest overhead, The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" And loud that clarion voice replied, Excelsior!

"O stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine tree's withered branch! Beware the awful avalanche !"

This was the peasant's last good night,
A voice replied far up the height,
Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of St. Bernard