urned to living creatures;
The words were but the dingy bud
That bloomed, like Adam from the mud,
To human forms and features.

7.
I saw how Zeus was lodged once more
By Baucis and Philemon;
The text said, "Not alone of yore,
But every day at every door
Knocks still the masking Demon."

8.

DAIMON 't was printed in the book;
And as I read it slowly,
The letters moved and changed and took
Jove's stature, the Olympian look
Of painless melancholy.

9.

He paused upon the threshold worn:--
"With coin I cannot pay you;
Yet would I fain make some return,--
You will not the gift's cheapness spurn,--
Accept this fowl, I pray you.

10.

"Plain feathers wears my Hemera,
And has from ages olden;
She makes her nest in common hay;
And yet, of all the birds that lay,
Her eggs alone are golden."

11.

He turned and could no more be seen.
Old Baucis stared a moment,
Then tossed poor partlet on the green,
And with a tone half jest, half spleen,
Thus made her housewife's comment:

12.

"The stranger had a queerish face,
His smile was most unpleasant;
And though he meant it for a grace,
Yet this old hen of barnyard race
Was but a stingy present.

13.

"She's quite too old for laying eggs,
Nay, even to make a soup of;
It only needs to see her legs,--
You might as well boil down the pegs
I made the brood-hen's coop of!

14.

"More than three hundred such do I
Raise every year, her sisters;
Go, in the woods your fortune try,
All day for one poor earth-worm pry,
And scratch your toes to blisters!"

15.

Philemon found the rede was good;
And turning on the poor hen,
He clapped his hands, he stamped, hallooed,
Hunting the exile toward the wood,
To house with snipe and moor-hen.

16.

A poet saw and cried,--"Hold! hold!
What are you doing, madman?
Spurn you more wealth than can be told,
The fowl that lays the eggs of gold,
Because she's plainly clad, man?"

17.

To him Philemon,--"I'll not balk
Thy will with any shackle;
Wilt add a burden to thy walk?
Then take her without further talk;
You're both but fit to cackle!"

18.

But scarce the poe