A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

And still, when winter is ended, and the song of birds tell us of the
promise of spring, if we go to the woods, we find traces of the vow of
the sun-god. The trees are budding in buds of rosy hue, the willow
branches are decked with silvery catkins powdered with gold. The
larches, like slender dryads, wear a feathery garb of tender green, and
under the trees of the woods the primroses look up, like fallen stars.
Along the woodland path we go, treading on fragrant pine-needles and
on the beech leaves of last year that have not yet lost their radiant
amber. And, at a turn of the way, the sun-god suddenly shines through
the great dark branches of the giants of the forest, and before us lies a
patch of exquisite blue, as though a god had robbed the sky and torn
from it a precious fragment that seems alive and moving, between the
sun and the shadow.
And, as we look, the sun caresses it, and the South Wind gently moves
the little bell-shaped flowers of the wild hyacinth as it softly sweeps
across them. So does Hyacinthus live on; so do Apollo and Zephyrus
still love and mourn their friend.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] Legend says that on the petals of the hyacinth Apollo transcribed
the letters "Aì,"--"Alas!"
KING MIDAS OF THE GOLDEN TOUCH
In the plays of Shakespeare we have three distinct divisions--three
separate volumes. One deals with Tragedy, another with Comedy, a
third with History; and a mistake made by the young in their aspect of
life is that they do the same thing, and keep tragedy and comedy
severely apart, relegating them to separate volumes that, so they think,
have nothing to do with each other. But those who have passed many
milestones on the road know that "History" is the only right label for
the Book of Life's many parts, and that the actors in the great play are
in truth tragic comedians.