th its short-lived
beauty." Others say that Orpheus is "the mythological expression of
the delight which music gives to the primitive races," while yet
others accept without hesitation the idea that Orpheus is the sun
that, when day is done, plunges into the black abyss of night, in the
vain hope of overtaking his lost bride, Eurydice, the rosy dawn. And,
whether they be right or wrong, it would seem that the sadness that
comes to us sometimes as the day dies and the last of the sun's rays
vanish to leave the hills and valleys dark and cold, the sorrowful
feeling that we cannot understand when, in country places, we hear
music coming from far away, or listen to the plaintive song of the
bird, are things that very specially belong to the story of Orpheus.

In the country of Thrace, surrounded by all the best gifts of the
gods, Orpheus was born. His father was Apollo, the god of music and of
song, his mother the muse Calliope. Apollo gave his little son a lyre,
and himself taught him how to play it. It was not long before all the
wild things in the woods of Thrace crept out from the green trees and
thick undergrowth, and from the holes and caves in the rocks, to
listen to the music that the child's fingers made. The coo of the dove
to his mate, the flute-clear trill of the blackbird, the song of the
lark, the liquid carol of the nightingale--all ceased when the boy
made music. The winds that whispered their secrets to the trees owned
him for their lord, and the proudest trees of the forest bowed their
heads that they might not miss one exquisite sigh that his fingers
drew from the magical strings. Nor man nor beast lived in his day that
he could not sway by the power of his melody. He played a lullaby, and
all things slept. He played a love-lilt, and the flowers sprang up in
full bloom from the cold earth, and the dreaming red rosebud opened
wide her velvet petals, and all the land seemed full of the loving
echoes of the lilt he played. He played a war-march, and, afar off,
the sleeping tyrants of the forest sprang up, wide awake, and bared
their angry teeth, and the untried youths of Thrace ran to beg their
fathers to let them taste battle, while the scarred warriors felt on
their thumbs the sharpness of their sword blades, and smiled, well
content. While he played it would seem as though the very stones and
rocks gained hearts. Nay, the whole heart of the universe became one
great, palpitating, beautiful thing, an instr