"Yea," said Admetus, "thou canst help indeed, But as the spring shower helps the unsown mead. Yet listen: at Iolchos the first day Unto Diana's house I took my way, Where all men gathered ere the games began, There, at the right side of the royal man, Who rules Iolchos, did his daughter stand, Who with a suppliant bough in her right hand Headed the band of maidens; but to me More than a goddess did she seem to be, Nor fit to die; and therewithal I thought That we had all been thither called for nought But that her bridegroom Pelias might choose, And with that thought desire did I let loose, And striving not with Love, I gazed my fill, As one who will not fear the coming ill: All, foolish were mine eyes, foolish my heart, To strive in such a marvel to have part! What god shall wed her rather? no more fear Than vexes Pallas vexed her forehead clear, Faith shone from out her eyes, and on her lips Unknown love trembled; the Phoenician ships Within their dark holds nought so precious bring As her soft golden hair, no daintiest thing I ever saw was half so wisely wrought As was her rosy ear; beyond all thought, All words to tell of, her veiled body showed, As, by the image of the Three-formed bowed, She laid her offering down; then I drawn near The murmuring of her gentle voice could hear, As waking one hears music in the morn, Ere yet the fair June sun is fully born; And sweeter than the roses fresh with dew Sweet odours floated round me, as she drew Some golden thing from out her balmy breast With her right hand, the while her left hand pressed The hidden wonders of her girdlestead; And when abashed I sank adown my head, Dreading the god of Love, my eyes must meet The happy bands about her perfect feet. "What more? thou know'st perchance what thing love is? Kindness, and hot desire, and rage, and bliss, None first a moment; but before that day No love I knew but what might pass away When hot desire was changed to certainty, Or not abide much longer; e'en such stings Had smitten me, as the first warm day brings When March is dying; but now half a god The crowded way unto the lists I trod, Yet hopeless as a vanquished god at whiles, And hideous seemed the laughter and the smiles, And idle talk about me on the way. "But none could stand before me on that day, I was as god-possessed, not knowing how The King had brought her forth but for a show, To make his glory greater through the land: Therefore at last victorious did I stand Among my peers, nor yet one well-known name Had gathered any honour from my shame. For there indeed both men of Thessaly, Oetolians, Thebans, dwellers by the sea, And folk of Attica and Argolis, Arcadian woodmen, islanders, whose bliss Is to be tossed about from wave to wave, All these at last to me the honour gave, Nor did they grudge it: yea, and one man said,