The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

Through every region I have sought her;
Each shore has answered back my moan.
As Summer slides from zone to zone,
Winding Earth's beauty in his own,
Thus, seeking thee, my long lost daughter,
I wander ever, sad and lone.
Empty in Heaven my throne remains;
Unblest expand my harvest plains.

2.

I've searched the deep Sicilian meads,
And sacred Latium, where of yore
Saturn hid his forehead hoar:
I've sought her by the Alphean reeds:
Where solitary Cyclops squanders
On the unlistening oleanders
Vain song that makes the sea-wells quiver,
I've sought my child, and seek for ever.

3.

By Cretan lawns and vales oak-sprinkled,
By sands of Libya, brown and wrinkled,
And where for leagues, o'er Nile, is borne
The murmur of the yellowing corn,
And where o'er Ida's sea-like plain
White waving harvests mock the main,
Past Taurus, and past Caucasus,
Have I been vainly wandering thus;
In vain the Heavens my absence mourn,
And Iris' self in vain is faint
With wafting down their old complaint:
O'er earth, unresting though outworn,
I roam for aye, a shape forlorn!
Hark, hark, they sing—

FOUNTAIN NYMPHS.

1.

Proserpina was playing
In the soft Sicilian clime,
'Mid a thousand damsels maying,
All budding to their prime:
From their regions azure-blazing
The Immortal Concourse gazing
Bent down, and sought in vain
Another earthly shape so meet with them to reign.

2.

The steep blue arch above her,
In Jove's own smiles arrayed,
Shone mild, and seemed to love her:
His steeds Apollo stayed:

Soon as the God espied her
Nought else he saw beside her,
Though in that happy clime
A thousand maids were verging to the fulness of their prime.

3.

Old venerable Ocean
Against the meads uprolled
With ever-young emotion
His tides of blue and gold:
He had called with pomp and pæan
From his well-beloved Ægean
All billows to one shore,
To fawn around her footsteps and in murmurs to adore.

4.

Proserpina was playing
Sicilian flowers among;
Amid the tall flowers straying.
Alas! she strayed too long!
Sometimes she bent and kissed them,
Sometimes her hands caressed them,
And sometimes, one by one,
She gathered them and tenderly enclosed them in her zone.

5.

Lay upon your lips your fingers—
Ceres comes, and full of woe;
Sad she comes, and often lingers:
Well that grief divine I know:
Lay upon your lips your fingers;

Crush not, as you run, the grass;
Let the little bells of glass
On the fountain blinking
Burst, but ring not till she pass,
Down in silence sinking.
By the green scarf arching o'er her,
By her mantle yellow-pale,
By those blue weeds bent before her,
Bent as in a gale,
Well I know her—hush, descend—
Hither her green-tracked footsteps wend.

CERES.
Fair nymphs! whose music o'er the meadows gliding
Hath been your gentle herald, and for me
A guide obsequious to this spot—fair nymphs!
Fair graceful nymphs, my daughter's sweet companions,
Say, say but where she dwells; asking from me,
In turn, what boon you will.

NYMPHS.
Alas, we know not!

CERES.
May the pure ripple of your founts for ever
Leap up, unsoiled, against their verdurous banks;
May your fresh kisses ripple up as lightly,
As softly, and with undiscovering noise,
Against the embowering arms of prisoning lovers,
Shadowing those crystal bowers.

NYMPHS.
We have no lovers.

CERES.
No, and need none. Alas, Proserpina,
Thou wert as these! so innocent no fountain,
Nor half so gay; no flower so light, so fair.
Ah, fair mild Nymphs, my daughter's sweet companions!
May Jove, as ye run by, make blind the eyes
Of Wood-gods and the Fauns; in matted ivy
Tangle their beards; catch them in sudden clefts
Of deep-mossed stems, till ye have glided by—
But tell me where she dwells.

NYMPHS.
Goddess! we know not.

CERES.
Tell me then how ye lost her.

NYMPHS.
We were playing,
After our caverned sleep, which the high Gods
Sent us while Phœbus flamed too near the earth:
We played, like summer bees involved, and sang;
Some combing pearls from sandy slopes, some blowing
In shells, or lily-tubes our watery conchs;
When suddenly rolled forth long thunder peals
Far, far below. Earth shook; trembling we sank
Into our beds, amazed: when up we floated
A divine darkness hovered o'er the earth,
And from that moment we have had no flowers;
No flower since then in flower-famed Sicily!
And we no more behold Proserpina,
That played with us so sweetly. We have made

A melody that tells of her, and sing it,
Lest we should grieve.

CERES.
Yes, I have heard your song.
Still the same tale—the words themselves unchanged
—Know you no more?

NYMPHS.
Goddess, not wide our knowledge!
Phœbus cares nought for Nymphs, lonely flower-bathers;
Nor other prophet see we. Yet of late
Our vales are flushed with new strange visitants;
Their tumult ofttimes, as the sun descends,
Shakes us within our lily-paved pavilions;
And when we look abroad along the marge,
The inland vales, shaggy with pine and ilex,
That catch like nets those boy-nymphs, the light Zephyrs,
Are filled with riot. From all sides they rush,
Mad Gods, with russet brows the west outfacing,
And wands tossed high: in songs the lawns are drowned.
Help us, great Jove! Fair Goddess, once it chanced
As this red festival came reeling by,
Over the fount in which trembling we lay,
Some Wood-god crushed a wreath of poisonous berries,
Laughing; and our bright home all crimson grew,
So that we wept. I pray you, gentle Goddess,
Protect us from these Gods.

CERES.
Ha! Bacchus here!
I thought my little late-born enemy

Lay hid in Hellas—What, and merry grown,
With revellers! then haply he hath stolen
My beauteous child. Mild nymphs, my child's companions!
Mild, silver-footed nymphs with silver songs!
Where dwell those Wood-gods when they come not hither?

NYMPHS.
At Naxos, Fame reports; and unblessed isle.

CERES.
Farewell, sweet nymphs—from them, and from all perils
May Jove defend you well! I seek those Gods,
And I will pray them that they hurt you not.

NYMPHS.

First Semichorus.

Without aid of plumes
Light-footing the sea brine,
The dimness she illumes
Of evening's gray decline;
The wild streams, proud to waft her,
In dappled purple glide,
With a shadowed green track after,
And a sunny green beside.

Second Semichorus.

Down, nymphs, into the waters!
The air is dense with sighs,
The earth is red with slaughters;
Down, down, and seldom rise!

Our crystal dome above us,
And the star-dome yet more high,
Nor care nor pain can move us
While here we laugh and lie!

SCENE II. NAXOS.

Ceres, Wood-gods.
CERES.
A Bacchic wood! the pine stems and old oaks
Are swathed with crimson under their green shadows!
A wilderness of wood! within its depths
Armies of men might lurk. Above the trees
A gloom voluptuous undulates and hovers
Like a dark fleece of wind-dewed gossamer.
The caverns, as I pass them, mildly breathe
A colder current of wine-scented air
Into my face. Ha, ha,—a tiger's roar!
And now a din of resonant wild laughter
That makes the forest like a reed-pipe ring.
The very beasts have caught the infectious madness,
And ramp, with sport irreverent, on high Gods.
Down, leopard, down—ha, myriad-mooned panther,
Away! 'tis well for you this almond branch
Is sheathed in flowers Sicilia feeds no more;
That cry had else been louder. Hark, they come!

FAUNS AND WOOD-GODS.

First Strophe.

Hold, hold the vine-wreathed goblet up,
Where lies the fierce wine darkling;

Now Bacchus leaps from out the cup:
See, see his black eyes sparkling!
Hark, how the bubbles upward throw
A low song and soft coiling;
'Tis Bacchus' self that laughs below,
To keep his red fount boiling!

First Antistrophe.

Great Bacchus with his conquering hands
Upraised the far-sought treasure
Of all the oceans, all the lands,
Afloat in one wild pleasure.
Lo! how it plunges, rolls, and sweeps!
Great Bacchus bathes beneath it;
What odour from the eddy leaps!
Great Bacchus' self doth breathe it.

Second Strophe.

Through us he rises from the ground;
These sharp-leaved chaplets draw him
Into our tresses ivy-crowned:
In purple flames I saw him!
Lift every thyrsus high and higher;
While round and round ye wind them,
Great Bacchus turns the air to fire,
Wide crowns of fire behind them!

Second Antistrophe.

Drink, drink to Bacchus, every limb
With wine will soon be glowing:
He drinks to those who drink to him,
Himself on all bestowing.
Into the hearts of all his wards
He pours, like streams from Pindus,

The strength and speed of all the pards
That rolled his car by Indus!

CERES.
O Fauns and Satyrs of the merry forests!
Sharp-hoofed, long-horned, nymph-dreaded deities!
Grant me this hour your aid! Secrets I know
Of herbs grass-hidden and medicinal blooms
Whereof one leaf, into your cups distilled,
Would make them rise into a fount of foam
Wide as the broad arch of yon flowering myrtle:
Those secrets shall be yours—only restore me
My infant child.

FAUNS.
O venerable Goddess!
Large-browed, large-eyed, presence august and holy!
In our green forests dwells no infant child.

CERES.
But she is now in truth no infant child
As when I laid her 'mid the sacred flowers
Of Sicily, with Nymphs for her young nurses
And tender playmates.

FAUNS.
Venerable Goddess!
No child have we beheld, nor ever shall,
With mien like thine.

CERES.
Ah! she was not like me!
I was her mother; but like her no more
Than the dark ground is like some flower star-bright,
That from it springs, and o'er it waves in beauty!

FAUNS.
In Sicily you lost her?

CERES.
Wood-gods, yes.

FIRST FAUN.
And I remember now in that soft isle
Such creature we beheld as you have lost,
Upon a vernal bank she sat alone
Among the aërial mounds and honeyed meadows;
Wearied she seemed, yet smiled in weariness,
And, as a garden, was with bright flowers crowned;
Many she held upon her lap, and many
Fell down about her feet; her feet gleamed through them.
Strange fear, albeit to fear unused, we felt,
And, beckoning to each other, slow retired.
Since then in vain we seek her.

CERES.
Woodland Gods!
Was she not fair?

SECOND FAUN.
So fair that on the earth
Is left no longer any shape of beauty.
Well spake you, calling her your infant child.
Such light was on her brow—within her eyes
Such gleam immediate of celestial gladness,
A child she seemed, by that inspiring clime
Divinely ripened in one summer day
To full perfection of virginal beauty.
Not far the playmate nymphs their wild hymns sang,

Like birds new-touched by the enamouring season:
While we went back, dreading the wrath of Jove.

CERES.
Since she is lost those songs are heard no more.
In vain the sea-worn mariners suspend
Long time their oars amid the drifting spray;
In vain the home-bound shepherds pause and listen;
Nor any flower is seen.

FAUNS.
Maternal Goddess!
Still in one spot lingers a wreath of flowers.

CERES.
'Tis strange—those flowers, where are they?

FAUNS.
At the entrance
Of a long glen, that sinks in dimness down
From the proud pastures arched along the sea.

CERES.
Ha, Woodland Gods! that was her place of play;
A haunt unknown to men.

FAUNS.
Hark, hark, 'tis Bacchus!

CERES.
But tell me, Gods—

FAUNS.
We thirst, we thirst for wine;
Give, give us wine, and we will stay with you;
Roll it in deep floods forth, from cleft and cavern.

CERES.
Stay, Wood-gods, stay!

FAUNS.

Ha, ha, that laugh; 'tis Bacchus!

(They rush past singing.)

First Strophe.

Hour by hour the vines are growing
Over pine and over rock,
The blood, like fire within them flowing,
With bounding pulse and merry shock
Each light bough uplifts and pushes
Till the loftiest ridge it brushes.

First Antistrophe.

Hour by hour great Bacchus nurses
The wide wreaths of his anadem;
In him they meet, and he disperses
Himself o'er all the world in them:
The mountains of all seas and lands,
He grasps them in his thousand hands.

Second Strophe.

The gums from yonder pine-boughs dropping
Like fire-lit jewels darkly shine;
The ivy-wreaths yon goat is cropping
Are drenched in mist of purple wine.
The Vine, a honey-venomed snake,
Hath bit and swollen each brier and brake.

Second Antistrophe.

The forest burgeons giant-flowers
As on this generous food it feeds;

Warming its roots in crimson showers
That bead the earth with Bacchic seeds:
A sacred wood: his house of mirth
The God that conquers all the earth!

Epode.

The carpets of those halls of joyaunce
Uplift us with so fierce a spring,
That we, to balance that upbuoyaunce,
Deep draught on draught are forced to fling.
Hark, hark, his laugh! we cannot stay;
Blue skies, farewell! away, away!

CERES.
To Sicily once more. Lo! how these vines
Have grown about me! never infant yet
Tangled like this young Bacchus his embraces;
Not one upon the earth! another year,
And half my kingdom he'll have won from me
As Hermes robbed Apollo of his herd.
No feastful, sunlit mound, or yellow hill,
Will sing, at evening, anthems unto me;
No shelving corn-field on the mountain-slope
Make westering Phœbus, while askance he peers
Down through the pale stems, green with jealousy.
Parnassian weed, away! ah, lost Proserpina!
Thou, thou wert as my flowers—unsought for mine,
And then, once mine, more dear than all my wealth!
The Gods, in their Olympian mansions, know
Nothing of grief: children they too have lost;
But never mourned as I have. Surely I
Have caught from Earth some portion of her sadness,
And heart maternal of Humanity.

To Sicily once more. O fair Sicilia!
Those flowers they saw, whence came they, and what mean they?
That must my search discover; I must see them;
When I behold them I shall see once more
What I in vain desire—my child's fair eyes.
Down, vine-wreaths, down! I break from you away.

SCENE III. SICILIAN SEA.

(Nereids sing.)

Strophe.

Far off the storms were dying;
The Sea-nymphs and Sea-gods
On new-lulled billows lying,
With tridents and pearl-rods:
Upon their sliding thrones
And beds of waving waters
Reclined august, old Ocean's sons,
And the choir of his foam-white daughters.

Antistrophe.

Into their deep conchs blowing,
They smoothed the scowling waves,
And the great sea-music forth flowing
Was echoed in glassy caves.
There was no sound but song
Save now and then far under,
When an ocean monster streamed along
With a roll of Ocean's thunder.

Epode.

Then Iris, lightly dropping,
Leaped from her cloudy screen,
And lit on a wave down-sloping
In floods of crimson-green:
A moment its neck she trod,
And cried, ‘The Gods of Heaven
Are coming to feast with the Ocean-God,
So Jove has sworn, this even.’

GLAUCE.
Fair Sisters, ocean-cradled, wave-revered!
Holds not this evening well the morning's pledge?
Salt gust no more; nor airy arc, down-showering
Into the dim green, rain of sunny gems
Or crowns celestial; crystal chasm no more
By harsh winds crushed to murmuring foam abysses;
But, wide o'er all, a plenitude of light
Serene as that which sits on Jove's great brow;
And breeze as equable as Juno's breath.

AUTONOE.
And, Sisters, mark! along yon opal Heaven,
And sea of agate and chalcedony
The promised pageant spreads. We shall behold
The mighty head of Jove, rich-tressed, supreme,
Sacred and strong and fair and venerable,
With golden sceptre and obedient eagle:
And we shall gaze on Juno's large mild eyes,
And the sea-born Queen of Beauty, her who runs
Over the swelling hearts of Gods and men
As Thetis glides over the ocean waves;
And, dearer still to us, the graceful form

Of Hebe, solitary nymph of Heaven,
Alone among the Gods and yet not lonely.
Thus Iris spake.

EUDORA.
Fair Iris! dropped she then
This morn from Heaven, her ocean spoils to gather?
I knew it not, for on the Libyan sands
All day I rolled a great smooth shell, too great
To clasp or carry: but my tears are past,
Since we shall gaze upon high Gods.

GLAUCE.
Lo, there!
How the red west inflames the deep! Methinks
That merry God, conqueror of many a land,
His banners over ocean too is waving;
To Britain will he drive us, end of earth?
See, I have dropped my bracelet!

AUTONOE.
Over ocean
That God advances; dark-rimmed Naxian shores
Already with his tendril nets are swathed,
Yea and the Naxian billows; all day long
We toss them backward from our foam-white bosoms,
And beds of billows, to their beds of sand.

EUDORA.
And maids of earth he mocks at worse than us.
Last eve, by yonder meadow I was floating,
Pillowing my cheek upon a sleepy wave,
And hearkening to an inland pipe remote,
When suddenly the purpled shore resounded
With tumult harsh; and concourse I beheld

Of Wood-gods on the sands, leaping and laughing!
And why? because a gentle maid of earth
That with her mortal playmate had been straying,
Beneath the bank, oppressed perhaps with sleep,
(Who knows? I know not), when she thought not of it,
In vine-nets prisoned lay: The Wood-gods mocked!
Bacchus such puissance hath—

GLAUCE.
How wretched those
That dwell on Earth! alas, I pity them!
On that rough, heavy, element opaque
What lovely light can glimmer? None can tell
Wherefore the high Gods shaped the hump-backed Earth!

EUDORA.
Nay, Sister, when the forests slant as now
From the round mountains to the wine-black sea,
And Phœbus on their gold and vermeil roof
Looks brightly, while the winds rush under them,
Then hath the Earth her beauty—yea, a gleam
Like our Autonoe, when her sun-loved tresses
Upon a green rock loosening she flings forth,
Laughing, into some monster's briny eyes.

AUTONOE.
You speak well, Sister, courteous like the Gods;
And blossoming fruit-trees, spangled with sea spray,
Are fair indeed at sunrise: Earth hath gleams,
As Nubian slaves their gems; yet how forlorn
And like a slave's her downcast countenance!
Her hues are not like ocean's, coloured lights,
But coloured shades, dim shadows painted o'er;

Yea and the motions of her trees and harvests
Resemble those of slaves, reluctant, slow,
By outward force compelled; not like our billows,
Springing elastic in impetuous joy,
Or indolently swayed.

EUDORA.
Not less o'erawed
Are those that dwell on Earth, harsh-speaking Mortals.
One eve, it chanced, into a glen I wandered,
In garb a boy: unwonted weight I felt;
The shades moved not; dull odours thronged the air;
Up from the ground a dense, blunt sound was rushing;
All creatures ranged, as though beneath their feet
Down to earth's centre chains unseen were hung,
And languid browsed as from necessity,
Not joy, their faint sighs leaving on the grass.
All things were sad; sadly I wandered on
To where there lay a something large and black,
And panting; some Immortal deeming it,
With reverence I was passing, when, behold!
Hard by there stood a company of Mortals,
Wailing; and myrrh on myrrh, and oil on oil,
O'er it in grief they flung; it was a pyre.
Homeward I turned abashed, and weeping much
For Man's unhappy race, so fair, yet sad,
By Jove's great wrath oppressed and shame of death.
Yes, and weep still; for know you, gentle Sisters,
Though Gods themselves should dwell upon the Earth,
Grief they must feel; the affliction men call love,
Or hunger, or the grave.

AUTONOE.
Down, Sisters, down!
In sorrow footing the bright ocean-way
I see that form half human, all divine:
'Tis Ceres; plunge we down! No nymph she loves
Save her child's mates.

GLAUCE.
Yea, and of those is jealous.

SCENE IV. THE SICILIAN SHORE.

Ceres, Fountain Nymphs.
CERES.

Inconstant waves, farewell: I love you not:
Earth, I salute thee, fruitful, though in sorrow.
Still on! my search, though vain, is all my rest.
One flower of hers, to this sad bosom folded,
Will give it back its old Olympian calm.
The nymphs sing low: O for thy songs, Proserpine,
That woke the ice-bound streams, while old boughs leaped,
Though dead, into the glory of fresh blossoms!

(Fountain Nymphs sing.)

1

Proserpina was lying
Against her ebon throne;
Alternating long sighing
With a shudder and a moan:

The dull Lethean river,
Whose breath the nightshade breeds,
Went toiling on for ever
Through the forest of its reeds:
‘O mother, I was playing
'Mid the soft Sicilian air—
Forever must I languish
In this empire of Despair!’

2

With wide and sable gleaming,
In chains decreed of old,
Through gray morasses streaming,
That ancient river rolled:
The hemlock borders under
Drave the voluminous flood,
With a low, soft, sleepy thunder
That thrilled the stagnant blood:
‘O mother, I was playing
'Mid the soft Sicilian air—
Forever must I languish
In this empire of Despair!’

3

No bird was there to warble,
The wind was void of sound;
Vast caves of jet-black marble
Were yawning all around;
No placid Heaven, blue-tented,
Its dome above her spread;
Like clouds the Souls tormented
Were drifting overhead:

‘O mother I was playing
'Mid the soft Sicilian air—
Forever must I languish
In this empire of Despair!’

4

Darkness but faintly chequered
Possessed that region dim,
Save one white cloud that flickered
Above the horizon's rim;
Under the dreary lustre
It cast in flakes and showers
Up rose afar the cluster
Of Pluto's palace towers:
‘O mother, I was playing
'Mid the soft Sicilian air—
Forever must I languish
In this empire of Despair!’

5

Proserpina for ever
Thereon her large eyes kept,
While gusts from that cold river
Her tresses backward swept;
Ever in sadness lying
Against her ebon throne,
With her melancholy sighing
Half smothered in a moan:
‘O mother, I was playing
'Mid the soft Sicilian air—
Must I languish here forever
In this empire of Despair!’

CERES.
O Nymphs, where found you that despondent song?
And why this funeral chime? She is immortal.

NYMPHS.
Immortal truly, venerable Goddess!
And yet in Erebus she dwells; and plays
No more; no flowers to play with finds she there.

CERES.
How know you this?

NYMPHS.
Last eve we wandered forth,
By fugitive rainbows lured and rain-washed grass,
To that deep valley where we lost our playmate;
And for the first time past it. In one spot
We found, with joy astonished, crowds of flowers;
Flowers of all kinds, each larger than its kind,
And brighter; wandering here and there among them,
Behold two mighty chariot tracks! deep fissures,
Burning and black, to where the opposing bank
Locked in and barred the vale: the rocks were split;
Dull vapours hovering o'er them. In a moment
The truth flashed on us, and we heard, yea felt
Once more, that subterraneous thunder roll.
The King of Darkness, Monarch sole below,
Looked up and saw thy child, and thirsted for her;
And snatched her to his shades:—In Erebus
Thy daughter dwells.

CERES.
No song, no fable this!
Ah flower! pure lily among the unfruitful shades!
White lonely lamp of all the Elysian darkness!

Ah child! the daughter of an unblest fate,
Thou hast no Mother now: thou hast forgotten
That e'er thou hadst a Mother—Woe, woe, woe!
The imperial diadem doth mock that brow,
The sceptre doth subdue that little hand
More than the Shades, thy subjects! Gentle Nymphs,
Let me behold that spot.

FIRST NYMPH.
With slow, sad foot
(On gray autumnal eves, the Nymphs themselves
With slow, sad foot, o'er the dim grass steal on)
Advance; no bounding step, fair sister Nymphs;
No bounding step, or jubilant, reckless song.
Lo, there the gleam! a breeze, a sigh divine
Is ever sweeping o'er those tremulous flowers!
Troubling their dews that fall not, held, like tears
In melancholy eyes—O fair, fair flowers!
Ye, as she dropped you, instantly took root,
And fade not ever. Immortality
Ye caught from the last pressure of those hands;
Immortal were ye though the world should die.

NYMPHS.

First Semichorus.

Looks divine, divinely chastened,
Sad eyes, on the saddened ground
As by spells eternal fastened,
Folded hands, and locks unbound!
Deeper, every moment deeper,
Pierce those eyes her daughter's shroud;
The earth to this immortal weeper
Grows half transparent as a cloud;

And her ears even now are ringing
With old Lethe's mournful singing.

Second Semichorus.

But see, on high the blue is riven!
That radiance! Hermes it must be!
Around him smiles the flattered Heaven;
No Apollonian flight hath he
Right onward, nor the stormy wrath
On Jove's great Eagle earthward rushing,
But winds along in serpent path
Through maiden airs around him flushing,
With wingèd feet and rod upholden,
Enwreathed with mild Persuasions golden.

HERMES.
Hermes, mild herald of the Gods, I come,
Bearing the grace of Jove, upon my lips
Distilled—high kiss of heavenly benediction.
Goddess to Mortals and Immortals dear,
Be of good cheer: Proserpina, beloved
Of all the blest Olympians, sceptred sits
In Tartarus; sole pride of him that sways
The world heroic of Departed Souls;
A child although a Queen; and, though a spouse,
Yet virgin ever; tempering the deep heart
Of Pluto, and to all the Shades as dear
As Dian to the night, or to the waves
The foam-dividing star of Aphrodite.
Sacred and well beloved—a Mystery—
Fares she not well? Maternal Goddess! raise
The large dejected orbs of thy fair eyes,
And gaze on him upon whose brow doth meet

The light of all the Gods giving command:
Look up and speak!

CERES.
Mild herald Mercury!
Thy voice is in mine ears; winged and sweet
Ever its tones; brightening all hearts, like Heaven
When Jove looks up: but now, unwonted softness
Melts through their pauses. Dost thou pity me?
Then herald God, auspicious guide of Shades,
Mighty art thou in the Unbeloved Abode;
Restore, restore my child!

HERMES.
Not comfort only,
Deep-bosomed Goddess, grave, and dulcet-voiced,
But aid I bear: and need there is of both.
Alone she sits beyond the utmost bound
Of laughter from the Gods, or shaft Phœbean,
And thou art justly restless for thine own.
Hear then the ordinance of Jove; descend!
Yon rock shall like a billow arch thy way;
Descend into the Stygian waste; behold
Once more thy tender daughter face to face;
Kiss her once more, once more upon thy knee
And in thine arms possess her. This is much:
Yet more: if seed not yet of flower or fruit
Unblessed have touched her lips, henceforth and ever
With thee she dwells in sweet society.
Descend! the Will of Jove, before thee running,
Makes smooth thy path, and the Caducean charm
Waved from this wand, around thy feet shall beckon
A quire of bright Immortals fit to grace
The steps of a departing Deity.

Ethereal Seasons! from the snowy clouds,
Your ambient nests on cold autumnal days,
Hover once more about this spot; and ye
Gift-feathered Hours, at Heaven's wide gate for ever
On broad and billowy wing suspense, the cord
Aerial, that detains you, bursting, fly
With unreverting faces to the earth,
And breathe a sudden spring on valley and plain:
And ye, infantine Zephyrs, on whose lips
The Gods have breathed; thou too, delight of Heaven,
Iris! descend; and o'er the shadowy glen
Thy many-coloured scarf from both thy hands
Fling wide, and cast the brightest of thy smiles
Upon the head of this descending Power.

FIRST NYMPH.
Behold! into the chasm she walks.

SECOND NYMPH.

But lo!
How rich a splendour burns on yonder bank!
The trees grow lustrous as Apollo's locks;
Between the arch of yon suspended bow
And the green hollow, flows a low deep music,
With light songs o'er it playing in wantonness:
Hark, hark, once more.

(The Hours sing.)

Strophe.

A beam on Earth's chill bosom
Falls pointed 'mid her sleep;
And leaf and bud and blossom
Up from their dull trance leap:

That beam at Earth's dim centre
Hath found the mailèd Winter,
And touched his snow-cold lips;
Upon his breast that beam doth rest
And frost-bound finger tips.

Antistrophe.

From deep grass gently heaving
Quick flowers in myriads rise,
A wreath for Winter weaving;
It falls below his eyes!
His old gray beard it covers
Like locks of mirthful lovers;
It makes him laugh with pride,
As he a youth had grown in sooth
And found a youthful Bride.

(The Zephyrs sing.)

Strophe.

The bright-lipped waters troubling
Of the pure Olympian springs,
We caught the airs up-bubbling,
And stayed them with our wings;
From the beginning sealed
Like sweet thoughts unrevealed
Those airs till then lay hid;
Like odours barred in buds yet hard
Or the eye beneath the lid.

Antistrophe.

Our pinions mildly swaying
With an undulating grace
We bid those airs go playing
Over Earth's beaming face:

On the laurel banks new-flowered,
On the ridge of pine dew-showered,
On every leaf and blade
That leaps on wings and all but sings
In sunshine or in shade!

(Hours and Zephyrs sing together.)

Strophe.

Over the olives hovering,
Brushing the myrtle bowers,
Dark ground with blossoms covering,
The Zephyrs and the Hours,
With laugh and gentle mocking
We play, the green boughs rocking,
Above each other rolled
From laurel leaf to laurel leaf,
That sing like tongues of gold!

Antistrophe.

Now like birds fast flitting
On from bough to bough,
Like bees in sunshine knitting
Murmuring mazes now:
Parting oft—oft blending
And for ever sending
Spangled showers around,
With eddying streams of scents and gleams,
And deep Olympian sound.

(Sicilian Nymphs singing.)

First Strophe.

Numbers softer than our own
And in happier circle running

Like Flora's crown or Venus' zone
They are braiding in their cunning.
All the God-througed air is glowing
With a ferment of delight,
All the flowers in rapture blowing
Every moment swell more bright,
And higher round the pale stems clamber
In vermilion wreaths or amber.

First Antistrophe.

Half in terror, half in pleasure,
Little birds on warm boughs waking
Launch abroad a rival measure,
Floral births with songs o'ertaking:
O'er the shadows little lights,
And o'er little lights a shadow
Bound along like gamesome sprites
On the green waves of the meadow;
And new streams are up and boiling,
And new insects round them coiling.

Second Strophe.

On one side a cedarn alley,
On the other a myrrh brake,
Downward streams the mystic valley,
As flushed rivers their path take
By hills their devious waters curbing;
Airs ambrosial forth are swung
From boughs their crimson fruitage orbing
Iris, borne those airs among,
Flings o'er the dim wildernesses
Her illumed dishevelled tresses.

Second Antistrophe.

Through a mist of sunny rays
Gleam bright eyes and pinions shiver;
O'er the mountain's breast of bays
Panting dew-gems bask and quiver;
All the Gods with silent greeting
In this sumptuous harbour met
Make the palace of their meeting
Rich as Juno's cabinet,
Golden-domed and golden-gated,
With sacred pleasures never sated.

Hush—wild song, no more!
Nor dance of lyric lightness—
A shadow from the shore
Steals, and blots the brightness.
Like children tired of play
The splendours melt away:
Trips by each elf—mark! Iris' self
Dissolves in waning whiteness.

IRIS.
I have but leaped from out my airy lustres
To plant my white foot palpably on Earth.
Fair nymphs, this shadow soon, too soon, will reach
The front now bright of that descended Goddess.
Her lost one she hath found—alas, too late:
Seeds of a Stygian fruit have passed her lips!
Three fatal seeds! Proserpina hath sucked
Into her being the dark element.
And yet lament not! Ceres' self shall learn
Comfort and divine solace from her child,
What the Gods could not give, her child, though sad,
Yet fraught with sweetness of Elysian wisdom,

Bestows upon the Mother. From this hour
Let every mortal Mother that hath given
A child from her own heart into the Shades,
Live and take comfort; they shall meet again.
Let every mourner in the Past who buries
An innocent delight, be sure henceforth
That in the Future, a large treasure-house,
It doth await him. Gentle Nymphs, weep not;
Those parted lips, those smooth and candid brows
Were not for mourners fashioned, sigh or shadow,
But for pure breathing of celestial airs,
And gracing a light garland.

NYMPHS.
Mild-eyed Goddess!
Must we no more behold Proserpina?
Must flower-famed Sicily have no more flowers?

IRIS.

I see the end, and therefore I am glad;
I, that look down into the smallest dewdrop,
Yet in my bright arch clasp the end of all:
And, whether I descend, the adorned cradle
Of some young flower to rock, or fatally
To cut the locks of some expiring King,
My task is kind, and Comforter my name.
Fear nought; Proserpina shall rise once more;
For Jove is clement, and a Mother's prayers
Ofttimes of fateful power against the Fates.
One half the year in darkness dwells she throned,
A Queen; one half she plays, a child on Earth,
Flower-crowned, and constant 'mid inconstancy,
Whether Narcissus now, or Daffodil
Her choice persuade; or mysteries in the cups

Of Cowslips through thick honey scarce espied,
Or Primroses moon-lighted all day long,
Or fabled Pansy, or Anemone
Wind-chidden, or the red all-conquering Rose,
Enchain her youthful heart—or other flowers,
Named on the Earth but nameless still in Heaven,
Subdue her, each in turn or all at once.
Mild Nymphs, farewell! To Juno, large-eyed Queen,
Whose Herald fair I boast myself, once more
I speed

(Nymphs descend, singing.)

Strophe.

Proserpina once more
Will come to us a-Maying;
Sicilian meadows o'er
Low-singing and light-playing.
The wintry durance past,
Delight will come at last:
Proserpina will come to us—
Will come to us a-Maying.

Antistrophe.

Sullen skies to-day,
Sunny skies to-morrow;
November steals from May,
And May from her doth borrow;
Griefs—Joys—in Time's strange dance
Interchangeably advance;
The sweetest joys that come to us
Come sweeter for past sorrow.

University of Virginia Library

THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE.

A MASQUE.

SCENE I. IN SICILY.

1.

2.

3.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

First Semichorus.

Second Semichorus.

SCENE II. NAXOS.

First Strophe.

First Antistrophe.

Second Strophe.

Second Antistrophe.

First Strophe.

First Antistrophe.

Second Strophe.

Second Antistrophe.

Epode.

SCENE III. SICILIAN SEA.

Strophe.

Antistrophe.

Epode.

SCENE IV. THE SICILIAN SHORE.

1

2

3

4

5

First Semichorus.

Second Semichorus.

Strophe.

Antistrophe.

Strophe.

Antistrophe.

Strophe.

Antistrophe.

First Strophe.

First Antistrophe.

Second Strophe.

Second Antistrophe.

Strophe.

Antistrophe.