University of Virginia Library

No more of rural song and pastoral,
Profuse or studied, but a higher strain;
Thee now I woo, divine Melpomene.
Thou didst inspire tragedians grave of eld,
To sing of Godlike suffering, and embalm
In monumental verse the woe of Gods;
Much did they sing, but much remains unsung,
And chief Demeter's woe, which now is mine.
O help me, as thou didst thine elder bards,
Order the lofty numbers, build the style
In naked and severe simplicity,
And lift my spirit to the argument,
Which deepens soon to tragic. Breathe through me,
Voiceless myself, and thine be all the wreaths.

Where is Demeter now? What troubled look
Burthens her face—what solemn words the air?
Demeter stands beside the spring which rose
Where Aides vanished with Persephone:
Of port superior to the loftiest
Of mortal mould, in Queen, or Amazon
Renowned, the light and pillar of the sex;
Deep-bosomed, and white-limbed, a supreme Shape.
Her face is pale with sorrow, yet she wears
Her sorrow grandly like a diadem,
Nor other crown, though Goddess of the Earth,
Except the simple tiar of golden hair
Coiled round her brow, an orbèd peak of thought.
Her voice is sadder than an autumn wind
In a lone land, not shrill, nor full of gusts,
But equal, and deep-toned, blown from all points.

“I have been listening, wrapt in searching thought,
To what, in trembling words, the nymphs revealed,
But where my child has gone I cannot tell;
My foresight failed me here, my knowledge fails.
Wisdom will come, till when its place usurped
Is filled by grief. Perchance some River God
Hath stolen my child, whom he will soon return,
Unharmed, for fear of me, so potent I.
This fountain must be questioned. Answer me,
Soul of this coil of foamy turbulence,
Whether thou art beneath the wide, waste sea,
With great Poseidon, and his finny train,
Or in the deeps of Earth, in caves obscure,
Up-hastening to the light, at this my call—
Speak, answer me, where is Persephone?
Thou hast beheld, and stolen her away,
Thou, or some other spirit mischievous,
Whose portal of retreat was opened here.
Where is my daughter? If I speak again,
The Earth will draw thy fountain to its source,
And cast thee from her bosom. Answer me!
In vain, in vain! The fountain hath no God,
And cannot answer; Godless let it be,
Stormy and bitter to the end of time.
But you, ye lesser spirits of the vale,
Cannot escape—I here compel ye all.
From rivers, brooks, and springs, you Naiads come,
With Napeads from the vale; and from the grove
The Meliads, who here for lack of flocks
Must tend the fruit; and you, ye Oreads,
Both from the valley and the mountain mists;
Hither, and tell me of Persephone.”

The Goddess thus, and even as she spake
From rivers, brooks, and springs the Naiads came,
With water lilies tangled in their hair;
The Napeads from the vale in skirts of grass,
The Meliads with their white hands full of fruit,
And all the Oreads from the shifting mists,
Wringing their dewy tresses on the lawn;
Obedient to the power that summoned them,
They thus made answer in their several turns.

“We are the Naiads of the neighboring streams.
Below their wrinkled waves we live in grots,
Paven with furrowed sands, the shelvy rocks
Our thrones, our couches beds of humid moss.
We strain the water through our golden hair,
With flowers we sow the bottom, and with weeds
Whose blooms are full of wind. We love the fish
Whose little coats are sleek with glittering scales:
The plated turtles, and defiant crabs,
That lie, or crawl beneath the grayish stones,
The long-legged beetles skimming o'er the waves,
With other watery insects, are our care:
We know and love the least: but as we hope
To keep our silver urns forever full
We all are ignorant of Persephone.”

“But I,” said one, the Naiad of a lake,
“I saw the nymph, and she was lovelier
Than all my lilies, whiter than my swans;
But where she hides I know not, or may fires
Shed from the Dog-Star dry my fountains up,
And leave me shelterless on burning sands.”

“And we,” the drooping Napeads began,
“Surrounded by her train we saw the nymph
Trip down the vale. We woke the early flowers,
And turned the dew from their enamelled cups;
Not one but wanted to resign its life
Beneath her feet—to die such death were sweet:
She walked as lightly as the winds of Spring.”

“The winds of Spring,” the Meliads broke and joined
The broken thread of speech, “the winds of Spring
Blow in old Winter's teeth, and rouse the buds;
The winds of Summer overtake the Spring,
And swell the buds to fruit: both are our care.
We screen the buds with leaves, remove the worms,
And drive away the bees and angry wasps;
We feed the fruit with sun, and wind, and dew;
The rinds of some we gild, and some we kiss,
And leave our breath thereon in bluish mist.
We saw at dawn the nymph Persephone
Lost in our orchards; figs, and plums, and pears
Lay round in heaps; we rained the olives down,
The red pomegranates split, and pierced the myrrh
And manna-tree whose veins are full of balm.
With many a sweet delay the virgin passed,
But where she hides we know not, or may blight
Shrivel our leaves, the north winds nip our buds,
And worms destroy our fruit—henceforth to be
More rich and luscious than in other years.”

“We dwell in mists,” began the Oreads next,
“In vale and mountain mists; a streak of gold
Betrays our presence there; in hollow glens
We couch when dews are dried: among the hills,
From peak to peak, we float across the gulfs,
And leap in cataracts down the untouched crags.
May all our dews and exhalations fail
But we are ignorant of Persephone.”

“Infirm, and idle, wherefore do ye live,
If not to see, and succor Excellence,
When Excellence may need your timely aid?
Is it for this that Earth's maternal care
Protects and clasps ye to her loving heart?
For this Heaven holds ye in its sacred charge?
But thou, O Earth, great Mother of Mankind!
If these, thine own appointed ministrants,
Neglect their calling, thou shouldst rise thyself,
And save the heavenly ones whose lives are thine,
And unto thine add joy and length of days.
Back to your homes, and little tasks again,
Ye spirits of this dark, accursèd vale,
And leave me in my loneliness alone!
To be a Goddess now avails me not,
Nor yet to have a Goddess for my child.
With sleepless eyes the island must be searched.
Obscure and wild the dark retreat must be
For me to fear; a mother's eyes are keen,
A mother's heart is strong to save her child.
Farewell ye groves of Enna, where we dwelt!
Farewell, ye meadows! When I come again,
I bring Persephone, or come no more.”

Thus spake Demeter as she crossed the vale
To search its northern bounds, which lovelier grew
At every step, the home and haunt of Spring.
Through groves and orchards full of piping birds,
That dropped from bough to bough like falling buds,
Through emerald meadows sown with silver dew,
And golden pastures resonant with bees,
The Goddess passed, with keen and anxious eyes
Perusing all; nor did she cease to call
“Persephone!” But trace of her was none,
Save in her shoutings, which the vale retained,
As hollow shores the voice of ebbing seas.
Then through a gorge along the east she went,
The mountains on her right fledged with dark pines,
And on her left the long Nebrodian range,
The craggy barriers of the northern sky;
The wind blew downward from their summit snows
Freighted with winter, and the melting mist,
Heavy and damp, rolled up and down the gorge;
And up and down the gorge the Goddess went,
Scanning the figures shrouded in the mist.
And one by one the Hours with solemn pace
Did come and go, and Morning was no more.

There was a wild and desolate ravine
That wound along the bottom of the pass;
Its misty sides were dark with shaggy woods,
And from its verge, headlong, a river plunged
Through clouds of spray, deep down a troubled lake,
Dammed up with rocks, down which it plunged again,
In ragged cataracts, sullen and hoarse.
A narrow pathway coiled on rocky shelves
With steep descents traversed the precipice:
Down this with wary feet Demeter trod,
And searched the old and melancholy woods
Burthened with endless shade and solitude,
And searched the clouded lake and waterfall,
And all the cavernous bases of the hills,
Deep-sunk in earth; no nook, nor secret cleft,
In which a spotted adder and her brood
Could coil away, escaped her sharpened eye,
That found no traces of Persephone.
So up the pass with slow and toilsome steps
She clomb again, and reached at last a plain
That stretched along the west, and slept in light.
Till now nor sight nor sound of man appeared,
But now at intervals shepherds were seen,
And notes of shepherd's flutes were heard afar.
Here dwelt a pastoral race that worshipped Pan,
Nor far the Goddess journeyed ere she found
A group around his altar, reverent swains
With sacrificial goats, and pious maids
With urns of honey wreathed in sprigs of pine;
And in their midst the venerable Priest.
Deep awe pervaded all as thus she spake.

“Shepherds, since dawn the nymph Persephone
By hostile force from Enna has been ta'en;
If any man has seen her, let him speak,
Let him not fear, but speak, and name her path.
We both are kind to you, nor love you less
Than if you worshipped us instead of Pan;
Witness the bees I charmed from Hybla here,
When last the sun flamed in the vernal signs,
With all that shall hereafter come of good
To him, whose happy knowledge touching her—
If any such there be—lightens my heart;
Good, if he speak, evil, if he speak not,
To him, and all his kindred after him;
But such there cannot be. Speak, shepherds, speak!”

The Goddess thus, and paused, but none replied,
So deep the dread that fell upon all hearts.
At length the Priest ventured with faltering tongue.
“O great Demeter! Goddess of the Earth!
Impute not sin to silence, neither charge
Thy loss to us, participants therein—
For who but suffers when the good are wronged?
Forgive our ignorance of Persephone,
And elsewhere let thy just displeasure fall.”

To whom Demeter, mild and sad, returned;
“Old man, 'twould ill become the race divine,
Divine no less through justice than through power,
Instead of Wrong, to punish Ignorance.
For if the Gods unjust and cruel prove,
How shall their worshippers be good and kind?
But fear not that; lifted above the world,
No mortal frailties their perfections mar.
Though sad at heart, right glad am I withal
To see ye love and reverence the Gods;
No grateful heart enjoys the least of gifts
Without returning to the giver thanks,
And offering in return the best it can.
Not that the Gods are ever paid thereby,
For what to them are honey, goats, or bulls?
They need them not, nor need they hymns of praise,
For they are all sufficient in themselves.
Yet dear to them the clouds of sacrifice,
That waft above the prayers of thankful hearts;
It is their due, the makers of mankind.”

Thus through her grief accents of wisdom fell.
Assured thereby they bowed, and worshipped her:
But mindful of her search, too long delayed,
She journeyed o'er the plain with added speed,
Till many-wooded Etna came in sight,
And the hot sun rounded the arch of Noon,
Descending to its western base of sea.

Ten leagues from Enna blue Simetos rolled
Through osier banks his current to the main.
Bathing her burning forehead in the waves,
She saw the image of the River God,
Obliquely mirrored in a bed of reeds;
Him she addressed, and at her call he rose,
With dripping locks crowned with a wreath of sedge.
“Son of Oceanos, whom ocean owns
No longer for its God, but still doth hide
In some deep cavern, while Poseidon rules
His sovereignty of sea—beloved of both,
Divine Simetos, if thou hast beheld
Since early dawn the nymph Persephone,
Stolen from Enna by some Power unknown,
Haply from spring, or stream, or far-off main,
Unfold what thou dost know: or knowing naught,
Since I would cross thy current in my search,
Draw back thy waters to their mountain source,
And let me pass; so may the mountain snows
Fail not to brim thy fountain, and thy mates,
Camsorus, Chrysos, and bright Eryces,
Empty their urns of tribute at thy feet.”

“O great Demeter! Mother of the Earth!
Sower of seed, and source of fruitfulness,
With grief I hear thy melancholy voice
Laden with loss, which I cannot repair,
For naught hath passed since dawn. I will draw back
My current to its source, and let thee cross.”

Thus he, and northward buffeted the waves,
Till lost around the river's westward curve;
Reaching its source he sealed its secret urn,
And stayed the current, which rolled on below,
And left a gulf, through which the Goddess passed,
With unwet sandals over waves of grass,
Through rounded walls of crystal, rolling down
Tumultuous in her rear in crumbled foam,
That shut the pass, and followed in her path,
Until she gained the river's eastern bank,
And shouted to Simetos, who unsealed
The dripping urn, when all the waters closed,
And sought the sea again as she her child.
Her path now wound about the southern base
Of Etna, sloping to the river's edge.
Here Polyphemos fed his numerous flock,
That lay like drifts of snow in dreamy vales,
Until Demeter's shadow, dark and tall,
Searching the uplands chased them o'er the hills;
All fled in fear save one whose lamb was lost,
A fearless ewe that to the Goddess came,
And made its sorrow known with piteous tears.
She would have left it in the fields, but lo,
It followed her, and bleated for its lamb.
So towards the sea they went, and reached at last
Its rippled margent where the Cyclops lay,
Under a ledge of rocks that made a cave;
Beside his feet a nameless river ran,
Now named and known from Acis, buried there.
Here Polyphemos languished in the sun,
Like some rude idol dusk barbarians
Adore no longer, tumbled from its base.
Thrice did the Goddess shout a mighty shout
Above his couch before he stirred a limb,
Then slow, and sullen, he arose and frowned.
But she stood calm as Thought, nor feared his strength.

“O Polyphemos, great Poseidon's son!
Noblest of all the Cyclopean race!
Shepherd of Etna, and its thousand flocks,
From thee Demeter claims a patient ear,
Attentive to her sorrow and despair,
That seek the footprints of Persephone,
Stolen from Enna by some wanton Power,
Not thee she fain would hope, since thou art great,
And should'st be kind, for kindness is the star
That crowns all greatness, therefore crowneth thee,
If thou hast harmed not her defenceless child,
Sunk, as thou seem'st, in sorrow and despair,
From ills unknown to her, for which nathless
She grieves, and pities thee, as thou dost her,
Meaning to tell her of Persephone;
Till when she waits, a-hungered for thy voice.”

Thus with wise words, like oil upon the sea
Swollen with storm, she laid his rising ire,
And smoothed his rugged features to a calm.

“Not I,” he said, “not I have done this thing,
Whoever may; not I go stealing maids;
I live and die for Galatea alone.
Why, I have lain all night in falling dew,
And sang of Galatea to every star;
And I have shouted from the cloven peaks
Until the Thunder answered from his cave,
While startled Lightnings glared from parting clouds.

O Galatea, divinest Galatea!
Well I remember when I saw thee first!
'Twas when at noon I lay along the bank
Of blue Simetos, where my thirsty flock
Crowded and pushed until the lamb fell in,
To drown, but for thy help, so strong the tide
That bore it out beyond my reaching crook,
But not beyond those delicate hands of thine,
Reaching from out the lilies that concealed
Thy whiter breast, to which the lamb was drawn,
Bleating for joy, and safely borne ashore,
Beneath thy loosened hair, that like a veil
Fell to thy feet, and sowed a shower of pearl.
O Cyclops, Cyclops, it were well for thee
Had thy one eye been blinded like Orion's,
Or ever thou hadst seen that fatal sight!

But hearken yet, Demeter, let me speak,
And I will guide thee to the mountain path
That winds about the forges of Hephaestos.

Again at noon she came, and fed the lamb
With handfuls of long grass, and wove the flowers
To crown her dripping tresses while I went
Through Hybla, drumming on the hollow oaks
Swarming with bees, till I had filled my cup
With lucent honey, which I gave to her;
For then she did not fear to let me sit
Beside her feet, nor fear my gifts of love:
But when she left me, floating like a swan
To seek the sea again blew kisses back.
Had I been blest with fins, like happy fish,
I would have followed in her glittering wake,
And scared away the amorous River Gods.
But had I been a River God myself,
I would have dived to her in the cold deeps.
Be sure I had not failed to find her there,
For ruffled waves are clear as air to me;
And oft at noon I watched her rising slow
Through shimmering leagues of water like a star.

I gave her ten young fawns as black as night,
Soft-eyed and delicate with silver feet,
With each a collar, and a chain of pearl.
She clapped her hands for joy, and smoothed my cheek
Until I laughed and wept: her hands were soft,
But mine are rougher than the mountain briars.

But hearken still, and let me speak again,
For now I touch upon my grief and loss,
Which had not been but for another's love
Thrust in between mine own and Galatea,
Whom all the shepherds worshipped, but afar,
Till Acis came, and spake. How did he dare
Step in between the Cyclops and his love?
And how could she endure his boyish face
Half-hid in yellow ringlets after me,
Whose mighty heart pulsed fire at every beat!

But let me speak again, and I have done.
I sat last eve upon the slope of hills,
What time the sunset tipped, as now, the woods,
And saw a double shadow on the mead
Two shadows clasped in one, with kissing lips;
'Twas Acis, and the faithless Galatea.
They were too busy then to think of me,
But I, I saw them there, and spake no word,
But crept in silence up from peak to peak,
Till, with sore labor, straining all my strength,
I lifted from its bed a crag of rock,
And cast it down upon the dreaming fools,
Thinking to crush them both, nor had I failed,
But that its falling shadow like a cloud
Startled the nymph, who suddenly leaped aside
To see him crushed and buried where he stood,
Jammed in the hard, cold earth, despite his moans;
Nor might her tears, which fell around like rain,
Nor all her prayers, restore him to her arms,
Unless she found him in the turbid stream
Which gushed from out the rock, and followed her,
Flying with shrieks of terror to the sea!

But come, Demeter, let us rise and go;
The lean, gray wolves will soon begin to prowl,
And I must pen my flocks; but let us go.”

Thus Polyphemos told his tale of love:
And spying at his feet the bleating ewe,
He lifted it with care in his rough arms,
And led the Goddess from the foamy beach,
Full to the west again, where now the Sun
Had plunged his broad red disc in seas of cloud.