suitors lost the
race and were killed. But finally young man called Hippomenes obtained
from the Goddess of Love three golden apples, and he was told that if he
dropped these apples while running, the girl would stop to pick them up,
and that in this way he might be able to win the race. So he ran, and when
he found himself about to be beaten, he dropped one apple. She stopped to
pick it up and thus he gained a little. In this way he won the race and
married Atalanta. Greek mythology says that afterwards she and her husband
were turned into lions because they offended the gods; however, that need
not concern us here. There is a very beautiful moral in the old Greek
story, and the merit of the American composition is that its author,
Maurice Thompson, perceived this moral and used it to illustrate a great
philosophical truth.

When Spring grows old, and sleepy winds
Set from the South with odours sweet,
I see my love, in green, cool groves,
Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet.
She throws a kiss and bids me run,
In whispers sweet as roses' breath;
I know I cannot win the race,
And at the end, I know, is death.

But joyfully I bare my limbs,
Anoint me with the tropic breeze,
And feel through every sinew run
The vigour of Hippomenes.

O race of love! we all have run
Thy happy course through groves of Spring,
And cared not, when at last we lost,
For life or death, or anything!

There are a few thoughts here requiring a little comment. You know that
the Greek games and athletic contests were held in the fairest season, and
that the contestants were stripped. They were also anointed with oil,
partly to protect the skin against sun and temperature and partly to make
the body more supple. The poet speaks of the young man as being anointed
by the warm wind of Spring, the tropic season of life. It is a very pretty
fancy. What he is really telling us is this:

"There are no more Greek games, but the race of love is still run to-day
as in times gone by; youth is the season, and the atmosphere of youth is
the anointing of the contestant."

But the moral of the piece is its great charm, the poetical statement of a
beautiful and a wonderful fact. In almost every life there is a time when
we care for only one person, and suffer much for that person's sake; yet
in that period we do not care whether we suffer or die, and in after life,
when we look back at those hours of youth,