With reverence, though to one who knew it not.
She was a goddess of the infant world;

By her in stature the tall Amazon

Had stood a pigmy's height: she would have ta'en Achilles by the hair, and bent his neck,

Or with a finger stayed Ixion's wheel.

Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx,
Pedestaled haply in a palace court,

When sages looked to Egypt for their lore.
But oh! how unlike marble was that face!
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made
Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self!
There was a listening fear in her regard,
As if calamity had but begun;

As if the vanward clouds of evil days
Had spent their malice, and the sullen roar
Was, with its stored thunder, laboring up.
One hand she pressed upon that aching spot
Where beats the human heart, as if just there,
Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain;
The other upon Saturn's bended neck

She laid, and to the level of his ear

Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake
In solemn tenor and deep organ tone;
Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue
Would come in these like accents - O, how frail,
To that large utterance of the early gods! —
"Saturn, look up! though wherefore, poor old king?
I cannot say, 'O wherefore sleepest thou?'
For heaven is parted from thee, and the earth
Knows thee not thus afflicted for a god;
And ocean, too, with all its solemn noise,
Has from thy scepter passed, and all the air
Is emptied of thy hoary majesty.

Thy thunder, conscious of the new command,

Rumbles reluctant o'er the fallen house;
And thy sharp lightning in unpracticed hands.
Scorches and burns our once serene domain.
O, aching time! O, moments big as years !
All, as ye pass, swell out the monstrous truth,
And press it so upon our weary griefs
That unbelief has not a space to breathe.
Saturn, sleep on! O, thoughtless why did I
Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude?
Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes?
Saturn, sleep on! while at thy feet I weep."
As when, upon a trancèd summer night,
Those green-robed senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,
Save from one gradual solitary gust

Which comes upon the silence, and dies off,
As if the ebbing air had but one wave;

So came these words and went.

Among the Romans the seventh day of the week was sacred to Saturn, hence our name for that day, Saturday. Raphael's picture represents him with a scythe in his hand, seated in a chariot drawn by wingèd dragons, personifying the flight of Time.

THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE GODS AND THE GIANTS.

THE battle-field of this contest was in Phleg'ra in Macedonia.

The fight lasted for a whole day, for the giants were very strong; but at last the gods gained the victory, and they crushed each of the giants beneath a huge moun

tain, which did not kill him but prevented his ever getting up again.

The most powerful of the giants that conspired against Jupiter was Enceladus. He tried to escape over the Mediterranean Sea, but the goddess Athené (Minerva), who was the daughter of Jupiter, tore off a great three-cornered piece of land and threw it after him. It hit him just as he was in the middle of the sea, and he fell down and was buried beneath it. After some time the land became covered with forests and cities, and it is now called the island of Sicily. Mount Etna marks the spot where the giant has lain ever since.

The poets say that the flames of this volcano arise. from the breath of the giant, and whenever he turns on one side beneath the mountain, the people say, "It is an earthquake."

Longfellow, in his poem, "King Robert of Sicily,"

says:

"Under the angel's government benign

The happy island danced with corn and wine,
And deep within the mountain's burning breast
Enceladus, the giant, was at rest."

In the following poem he gives the popular legend:

ENCELADUS.

LONGFELLOW.

Under Mount Etna he lies,

It is slumber, it is not death;
For he struggles at times to arise,
And above him the lurid skies

Are hot with his fiery breath.

The crags are piled on his breast,

The earth is heaped on his head,
But the groans of his wild unrest,
Though smothered and half-suppressed,
Are heard, and he is not dead.

And the nations far away

Are watching with eager eyes;
They talk together and say,
"To-morrow, perhaps to-day,
Enceladus will arise!"

And the old gods, the austere
Oppressors in their strength,
Stand aghast and white with fear

At the ominous sounds they hear,

And tremble, and mutter, "At length !"

Ah me for the land that is sown
With the harvest of despair!
Where the burning cinders, blown
From the lips of the overthrown
Enceladus, fill the air.

Where ashes are heaped in drifts
Over vineyard and field and town,
Whenever he starts and lifts

His head through the blackened rifts
Of the crags that keep him down.

See, see the red light shines!

'Tis the glare of his awful eyes!

And the storm-winds shout through the pines Of Alps and Apennines,

"Enceladus, arise !"

THE MYTH OF PROMETHEUS.

PROMETHEUS, son of the Titan, Japetus, was said to have made men of clay and water, after which Athené breathed a soul into them. The gods then held a meeting in order to adjust the duties and privileges of men. It was decided that Prometheus, as the advocate of man, should slay an ox and divide it into two parts, and that the gods should select one portion which in all future sacrifices should be set apart for them. In order to secure for man the portion suitable to be eaten, Prometheus wrapped the flesh in the skin, and the bones in the white fat. The animal thus divided was placed before Zeus that he might choose on the part of the gods. He pretended to be deceived, and chose the heap of bones, but he was so angry at the attempted deception that he avenged himself by refusing to mortals the gift of fire.

Prometheus, however, resolved to brave the anger of the ruler of Olympus. He stole some sparks from the chariot of the Sun, and conveyed them to the earth hidden in a hollow tube. Furious at having been outwitted, Zeus determined to be revenged, first on mankind, and then on Prometheus.

He had Prometheus chained to a rock on Mount Caucasus, where during the daytime a vulture devoured his liver, which grew again during the night.

After thirteen generations had passed away, Heracles (Hercules) was permitted to kill the eagle, and Prome

theus was released.