And from deep glens unbeholden
  Of the forest to his song
There came lynxes streaky-golden,
  There came lions in a throng,
    Tawny-coated, ruddy-eyed,
    To that piper in his pride;
And shy fawns he would embolden,
  Dappled dancers, out along
    The shadow by the pine-tree’s side.

And those magic pipes a-blowing
  Have fulfilled thee in thy reign
By thy Lake with honey flowing,
  By thy sheepfolds and thy grain;
    Where the Sun turns his steeds
    To the twilight, all the meads
Of Molossus know thy sowing
  And thy ploughs upon the plain. 
    Yea, and eastward thou art free
    To the portals of the sea,
And Pelion, the unharboured, is but minister to thee.

  He hath opened wide his dwelling
    To the stranger, though his ruth
  For the dead was fresh and welling,
    For the loved one of his youth. 
      ’Tis the brave heart’s cry: 
      “I will fail not, though I die!”
  Doth it win, with no man’s telling,
    Some high vision of the truth? 
      We may marvel.  Yet I trust,
      When man seeketh to be just
And to pity them that wander, God will raise him from the dust.

[As the song ceases the doors are thrown open and ADMETUS comes before them:  a great funeral procession is seen moving out.]

ADMETUS. 
Most gentle citizens, our dead is here
Made ready; and these youths to bear the bier
Uplifted to the grave-mound and the urn. 
Now, seeing she goes forth never to return,
Bid her your last farewell, as mourners may.

[The procession moves forward, past him.]

LEADER. 
Nay, lord; thy father, walking old and grey;
And followers bearing burial gifts and brave
Gauds, which men call the comfort of the grave.

Enter PHERES with followers bearing robes and gifts.

PHERES. 
I come in sorrow for thy sorrow, son. 
A faithful wife indeed thou hast lost, and one
Who ruled her heart.  But, howso hard they be,
We needs must bear these griefs.—­Some gifts for thee
Are here....  Yes; take them.  Let them go beneath
The sod.  We both must honour her in death,
Seeing she hath died, my son, that thou mayst live
Nor I be childless.  Aye, she would not give
My soul to a sad old age, mourning for thee. 
Methinks she hath made all women’s life to be
A nobler thing, by one great woman’s deed. 
  Thou saviour of my son, thou staff in need
To our wrecked age, farewell!  May some good life
Be thine still in the grave.—­Oh, ’tis a wife
Like this man needs; else let him stay unwed!

[The old man has not noticed ADMETUS’S gathering indignation.]