e drop lies in the
violet it takes that color, and steals from the rose her delicate
shades. From the sky it draws the blue, from a leaf its green and
silver. When all these colors have been taken in, the drop is congealed,
and imprisoned in its heart are the fiery flame, the rich violet, the
rose tints, the skyey blue, the delicate green and the gleaming silver.
This is the opal.

_The Barefoot Boy_

(Volume IV, page 3)

On page 5 occur the lines,

"Mine, on bended orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!"

According to the old Greeks, there lay far to the west, in the ocean, a
wonderful island where were kept, under the guard of a gruesome dragon,
the beautiful golden apples which Gaea gave as a wedding present to
Zeus. The Hesperides were the three daughters of Night, who ruled the
guardian dragon. These golden apples, then, came to be known as the
apples of Hesperides. When Hercules in his madness had slain his three
children he was condemned to do whatever his cousin Eurystheus demanded
for his purification. His tasks came to be known as the Twelve Labors of
Hercules, and the eleventh was to obtain the golden apples from the
Hesperides. He accomplished this task among the others, but the apples
were subsequently restored. To the barefoot boy the apples of his New
England tree were as choice as the golden ones of the Greek myth.

Do not fail to see the exquisite picture painted by these beautiful
descriptive lines on pages 5 and 6.

"O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swing fold."

_The Bugle Song_

(Volume VI, page 133)

Among the many charming lyrics which Tennyson has written, there are few
more musical or more delicately beautiful than _The Bugle Song_. It may
be appreciated better perhaps if we have knowledge of its setting. It
occurs in _The Princess_, and has no immediate connection with anything
that precedes or follows.

Three pairs of youthful lovers have been climbing above a lovely glade
wherein is pitched the tent of the Princess. As they climbed, "Many a
little hand glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks, and many a
light foot shone like a jewel set in the dark crag." They wound about
the cliffs, and out and in among the copses, striking off pieces of
various rocks and chattering over their stony names, until they reached
the summit and the sun grew broader as he set a