The old shepherd Admetus sat before the door of his hut waiting for his
grandson to return. He watched with drowsy eyes the eve gather, and
the woods and mountains grow dark over the isles--the isles of ancient
Greece. It was Greece before its day of beauty, and day was never
lovelier. The cloudy blossoms of smoke, curling upward from the valley,
sparkled a while high up in the sunlit air, a vague memorial of the
world of men below. From that, too, the color vanished, and those other
lights began to shine which to some are the only lights of day. The
skies dropped close upon the mountains and the silver seas like a vast
face brooding with intentness. There was enchantment, mystery, and
a living motion in its depths, the presence of all-pervading Zeus
enfolding his starry children with the dark radiance of aether.

"Ah!" murmured the old man, looking upward, "once it was living; once it
spoke to me. It speaks not now; but it speaks to others I know--to the
child who looks and longs and trembles in the dewy night. Why does he
linger now? He is beyond his hour. Ah, there now are his footsteps!"

A boy came up the valley driving the gray flocks which tumbled before
him in the darkness. He lifted his young face for the shepherd to kiss.
It was alight with ecstasy. Admetus looked at him with wonder. A golden
and silvery light rayed all about the child, so that his delicate
ethereal beauty seemed set in a star which followed his dancing
footsteps.

"How bright your eyes!" the old man said, faltering with sudden awe.
"Why do your limbs shine with moonfire light?"

"Oh, father," said the boy Apollo, "I am glad, for everything is living
tonight. The evening is all a voice and many voices. While the flocks
were browsing night gathered about me. I saw within it and it was
everywhere living.

"The wind with dim-blown tresses, odor, incense, and secret falling dew,
mingled in one warm breath. They whispered to me and called me 'Child of
the Stars,' 'Dew Heart,' and 'Soul of Light.' Oh, father, as I came up
the valley the voices followed me with song. Everything murmured love.
Even the daffodils, nodding in the olive gloom, grew golden at my feet,
and a flower within my heart knew of the still sweet secret of the
flowers. Listen, listen!"

There were voices in the night, voices as of star-rays descending.

Now the roof-tree of the midnight spreading
Buds in citron, green, and blue:
From afar its mystic odo