Which after held the sun and moon in fee."

Milton.

Yet are there times, as we look at the squat, bronze bodies of the
frogs--green-bronze, dark brown spotted, and all flecked with gold,
the turned-down corners of their wistful mouths, their very exquisite
black velvety eyes with golden rims--when the piteous croaks that come
forth from their throats of pale daffodil colour do indeed awake a
sympathy with their appeal against the inexorable decrees of destiny.

"We did not know! We did not understand! Pity us! Ah, pity us!
_Krroak! krroak! krroak!_"

ECHO AND NARCISSUS

In the solitudes of the hills we find her, and yet we may come on her
unawares in the din of a noisy city. She will answer us where the
waves are lashing themselves against the rugged cliffs of our own
British coast, or we may find her where the great yellow pillars of
fallen temples lie hot in the sun close to the vivid blue water of the
African sea. At nightfall, on the lonely northern moors, she mimics
the cry of a wailing bird that calls for its mate, but it is she who
prolongs the roll of the great organ in a vast cathedral, she who
repeats the rattle and crack and boom of the guns, no matter in what
land the war may be raging. In the desolate Australian bush she makes
the crash of the falling limb of a dead gum tree go on and on, and
tortures the human being who is lost, hopelessly lost, and facing a
cruel death, by repeating his despairing calls for help. Through the
night, in old country-houses, she sports at will and gives new life to
sad old tales of the restless dead who restlessly walk. But she echoes
the children's voices as they play by the seashore or pick primroses
in the woods in spring, and when they greet her with laughter, she
laughs in merry response. They may fear her when the sun has gone
down, and when they are left all alone they begin to dread her
mockery. Yet the nymph who sought for love and failed to gain what
she sought must surely find some comfort on those bright days of
summer and of spring when she gives the little children happiness and
they give her their love.

When all the world was young, and nymphs and fauns and dryads dwelt in
the forests, there was no nymph more lovely and more gay than she
whose name was Echo. Diana would smile on her for her fleetness of
foot when she followed her in the chase, and those whom she met in the
leafy pathways of the dim, green woods, would pass on smilin