University of Virginia Library

PERSEPHONE.

On high Olympus, where the great Gods hold
Council and converse all the days of gold,
The air, inviolate of mortal breath,
Is very still, more still than aught but death,
Save life—such radiant life as Gods enjoy.
For all delights that mortals dream of cloy
The feeble human sense to weariness,
Which faints, like some frail insect in a mess
Compact of honey and all luscious things;
But from the God ethereal there springs
A power so keen, so vivid, and so bright,
That like the Sun's intense pervading light
It searches the inert from end to end,
And nothing leaves with which it does not blend
Into a garment of enjoyment. So
They, the Gods, noting all the ebb and flow
Of this fair world, feeling with implicate
Fingers of sense outstretched the delicate
Delight of every light-thrill on the breeze,
Or hearing shocks of nations and of seas,
As heavenward for help they heave and cry,
Know, understand, but are not moved thereby:
For passion is part-knowledge, but they know
Past all misprision. Therefore doth there go
About Olympus' top such balm of air
As mortals, comprehending not, compare
To summer mornings of the later June;
Yet is it brighter, warmer, as a tune
Played on Apollo's god-lyre might surpass
The same flute-laboured of faun Marsyas.
All day in showers the golden-flaked sunshine
Floats downward through a liquid crystalline
Ocean of air, which, scarcely heaving, breaks
In balmy kisses where each forehead shakes
To right and left from white ambrosial brows
Its waving fringe. No rude intrusions rouse
This quiet that the Gods hold for their own,
But they can hear like a far distant tone
The murmurs and the music of the Earth—
Its lamentations and high tones of mirth,
Loud sylvan choruses and lonely song,
Lowings and bleatings of the herded throng,
Faint cockcrow and impatient fitful bark
Of shepherd hound wherever he may mark
A sheep astray, the shoreward sound of seas
And shout of broken battle—all of these
Half lost in air, save when a lark sometimes,
With beating heart and pinions heavenward climbs,
And holds immortals from their proper bliss
To listen to that earthborn song of his.
But when they would be free of Earth and men,
Pursuing their own paths past mortal ken,
They spread the soft white carpet of the clouds
About their feet, which underneath enshrouds
Earth's darkened races from the risen day;
Who deem the sun spoiled of his proper sway,
Nor know nor guess he holds his dazzling court
High overhead with Gods in god-like sport.
For there, sunsmitten, the white spotless plain
Spreads far and wide, smooth-billowed like the main,
When, minding stormy weather in the still,
It breaks, and fringes with a white foam-frill
Each island rock. So here the white mist breaks
Upwards on purple pinnacles and peaks,
Marking the limits of the land and sea;
And overhead the azure canopy
Is limitless pure light. The happy hours,
Each garlanded with crown of stars and flowers,
Here tarry from their swift earth-circling flight;
Venus unyokes her doves, and out of sight
Zeus puts his bolted fire; proud Hera yields
Her haughty seat, and o'er the silver fields
In equal converse all the Gods do go
With Loves and Zephyrs and the nectar flow
Of God-created laughter, more divine
Than nectar and more sweet than Cyprus wine.
Yet since all things, each by its opposite,
Are known, and light without dark is not light,
Nor day without night day, nor things divine
Divine, until experience refine
Good out of ill endured and life from death—
Since this at least our mortal wisdom saith
(For what and how the Gods themselves discern
We know not)—therefore whosoever turn
His footing from the sunlight, close at hand
Shall have quick entrance to the sunless land,
And tread the realms of darkness, absolute,
Dread, limitless, deep, undisturbed and mute;
Whose king is Hades. For when first the plains
Of sun and shadow into separate reigns
Were broken, he, being born of equal birth
With Zeus his brother, took the hollow Earth
And caves of Night and Silence for his own,
Leaving the light and land of all things shown
Unto the other; while between the twain
The neutral twilight-circled dusky plain
Was left for men. And each man whosoe'er
Moves bordering both worlds and can declare
Some part in each: for 'twixt them like a gate
His eyelids stand, which, soon as they dilate,
Suffer himself to pass their crystal doors
Into the upper land wherein he soars
Light-charioted like a God—God Zeus to wit:
But when those lids are closed, his soul doth sit
Contemplative and calm within its own
Infinite realm of thought upon the throne
Of night—and Hades; therefore, when men die,
Their friends make fast those jewelled doors whereby
The soul may never more return, and say
That to the realms of Hades it takes way.
Such is that land, serene-lit like a gem
Of purest night set in the diadem
Of its own monarch—a black diamond,—
In silence beautiful, and sense of fond
Large melancholy, restful in its gloom
And quiet liberty of spacious room,
Yet rousing fancy with its forms foreseen,
Forethought, foreboded down each deep ravine
And unexplored broad valley: who may know
What shapes about that wilderness do go?
Since Hades here doth hold all essences
And seeds of things, for Zeus at length to bless
To manifest fruition;—folded here
Lie slender-branching fern and wheaten ear,
All acts of men and famous enterprise—
As new lands lie in voyager's surmise—
Waiting the light to shape them. And rich store
He has in keeping: gold and silver ore,
And jewels Earth-embowelled in deep mines,
Which are not jewels, for no sparkle shines
Or has shone in them since the primal night,
Mountains of porphyry and malachite,
Opal and alabaster, and a hoard
Of turquoise, jade and cat's-eye cavern-stored.
Such is the wealth of Hades—and the mind,
Which yet is formless, valueless, till signed
And shapen by the sunlight into sight;
Just so within a marble block the might
Of fine prophetic fancy doth foreshow
The emprisoned form, which no one yet may know
Until the sculptor, taking tool in hand,
Sets free the statue from its stony band.
Now how from these two worlds, like friendly foes,
The yearly seasonable change arose
Of summer into winter, and why Earth
In Spring and Autumn signifies the birth
And death of all her children—or their sleep—
Was on this wise. For from Olympus' steep,
When parts their cloudy floor, the Gods can see
Laid out beneath them in fair spaces free
Mountain and valley and far meadowland,
Of sunny beauty, like a garden planned
In miniature: the forest foliage seems
Rich moss, no more, where, following the streams,
It dimples down each hillside; and the fields,
With many-coloured crops of various yields,
Lie like a robe which Ceres, passing by,
Had flung aside because the sun was high;
And then they trace the girdle of her land,
Broad ocean blue with silver-braided strand,
That flows about the world and makes it one,—
And listen for its song. And when the sun
Is near its watery edge, early or late,
And rude winds have forgot the day's debate,
They see a thousand incense-columns tall
Rise through the sultry air and range and fall
In wreaths of incense round Olympus' head;
And all are gladdened since the Gods are glad.
In those days girlish summer, rosy-crowned,
Circled her flowery sparkling wine-cup round
The whole bright year—nor was Demeter sad;
But now, with tears as well as laughter clad,
Whole months the mother of our corn and wine
Bewails her lost delight, fair Proserpine.
'Twas on a day when all the woods were green
And shady in the sun's meridian sheen—
A fitful light breeze swept the cool hillside,
And in the nearest valley dropt and died—
That rich Demeter from her gracious toil,
Whereby for man she fills the stubborn soil
With energy divine and fruitful grace,
Rested awhile. Upon her blooming face,
Prodigal of love in smiling motherhood,
And on her flaxen hair the arching wood
Threw grateful twilight, while with happy gaze
She viewed her work—rich fields of golden maize,
White wheat and waving oats, meads stocked with kine,
Olive and orange groves, and slopes of vine.
And at her side her gentle lovely child
Caught up the smile of earth and gazed and smiled
With rarer grace, more like the wreathen flowers
That, twined among her tresses, in sweet showers
Fell all about her as she moved her feet.
White robes she wore, blue-girdled, as to greet
Companionship of sunbeams and the sun,
Which round about her form did float and run,
As round a ripe peach on a southern wall;
Yet maidenly and slender, and in all
Her movements swift and modest, with the free
Magic of unexpected fire, was she,
Persephone, whom some call Proserpine.
Then, sudden gazing in the face benign
Of fond Demeter, as if some quick stroke
Of fancy so enforced it, thus she spoke:—
‘O mother dear, goddess of earthward care,
I know a meadow where the flowers are fair
With morning and the light upon their leaves;
Why linger 'mid the wine-vats and fat sheaves?
Come downward where the flowers are free of care.’
‘They know my voice, and hear me when I call,
And, as in some melodious madrigal,
Make answer down their choral lines of beauty,
Welcome on welcome waved in loyal duty:
Come hearken to that flowery madrigal.’
Then spake the mother of the fruitful earth:
‘O child, beloved and beautiful from birth,
I cannot leave these nurslings of my care:
The wells would choke, the plodding slow ploughshare
Would stumble in the furrow, the ripe seed
Forget with tiny outstretched arms to plead
For sunshine and enrichment of its dye,
And all that mortals seek and I supply
Fail in the general famine. But do thou,
If thou wilt, go, and, if thou wilt, go now,
Alone; for though I would not thou shouldst leave
The circle of my love, I will not grieve
Thy heart by prohibition. And the height
Commands the valley, and will grant me sight
Of all thy flowery gladness.’ So she went,
Persephone, and passed the woodland pent
And overhanging vines and orchard closes
And waving cornlands hedged about with roses,
Until a flowery mead received her feet
With soft close kiss and answering fragrance sweet.
These are the plains of Enna. Summer here
Holds her chief court, and dwells without a peer
In pensive beauty. Quiet is the land,
And sacred to her presence, unprofaned
By mortal tread; and whether days are clear
Or cloudy, on the limit doth appear
A moonlike light, where the far sea unseen
Fringes the sun-crowned sky with reflex sheen.
But now the sultry mead from midnoon blaze
Was curtained by a cloud, round which the rays
Rained in a silver shower: their circling made
A shining-columned temple of pure shade,
Wherein Persephone, in single grace,
Stood like a flowery genius of the place,
And sang:
And as she sang, about her feet the mead
Of gold and purple made a flowery brede;
The air, impassioned with a myriad hues,
O'er all her snow-white raiment did diffuse
Love-tinted splendours; to attain her head
A cloudy fragrance climbed, and thence was shed
Wave-like at every lightest motion; where
Clusters of hyacinth clung to her hair,
Over and past her like a flying veil
A rose shed all its petals on the gale,
And rustling with delight her footsteps fell
Upon the happy fields of asphodel.
But not alone Demeter on the height
Beheld that day's rejoicing; for delight
Had seized King Hades in his lonely home,
What time his vacant eyes, long used to roam
About the void with introvertive air,
Were dazzled to a keen and pointed stare
By that sweet revelation—summer-clad
Persephone. The magic vision had
One meaning only for him—love: the doubt,
The vague mist-phantoms of his mind went out
Utterly in that light: he waited not
An instant, e'en for casting of a lot,
But calling to his aid all earth and air,
Wind, fire, and thunder, from their cloudy lair,
Darkness and rain, and lurid red eclipse,
With signifying eyes and silent lips
He leapt into his chariot, black as night,
With nightblack horses harnessed, bade a sprite
Fling wide the doors of Hell, and sprang amain
To meet Persephone upon the plain.
Who, at that sight, fulfilled with sudden dread,
Swooned out of all sensation as one dead,
And earthward fell, while o'er her flowery crew
A grey cold shiver in wide circles flew,
As o'er the clouds of sunset, when the sun
Faints in eclipse before its course is run.
And in that moment with rapacious hand
He, Hades, swept her from the trembling land,
And for his paramour and consort bore
Her to the realms of gloom and silence sore.
Oft thus grey Winter in the waning year
With roaring winds and retinue of fear
Sweeps o'er the world; and ere its icy blast,
Black-ominous of death, be overpast,
Some child of sunlight, a blue smiling flower,
Lies lifeless where the lurid storm-clouds lower;
And, frozen earthwards, finds the days no more
That happy Summer in her sandals bore,
But lingers ice-bound in rude Winter's prison
Till life-redeeming Spring be rearisen.
So now Demeter's mother-heart with fear
Beat loudly high; for from her mountain sheer
She saw a dismal cloud close densely down
Upon Persephone; then rain did drown
All sight and sunlight, till a sudden crash
Rang, as of thunder, with a lurid flash;
Whereafter silence, till a friendless wind
Broke from the mountain-summits far behind,
And swept the plain, now desolate in dearth
Of flower or maid, or any mark of mirth.
In that day all the land seemed desolate.
Demeter rose; the smile that sat in state
Upon her face, like light upon the sun,
Had faded, and instead her eyes had won
A wondering far look of lonely grief,
Not without scorn, because e'en Zeus, the chief
Of Gods, seemed blemished in authority
By this bereavement. For both earth and sky
Grew gloomier; and where the Goddess stood
Dead leaves hissed by her from the withered wood,
The shrivelled grass showed brown beneath her feet,
And died, the rainy air was mixed with sleet,
And from each tree sweet fruit fell with a thud,
While every blossom perished ere the bud.
So, like the moon, when on a rainy night
It hastens through the clouds with ragged light,
Revealing half an outline and no more,
She lit a torch and, of despair pressed sore,
By once flower-garlanded familiar ways
Hastened along the land; and for amaze
Knew nought of what this strange mishap might be,
But only that she sought Persephone.
Meanwhile the cloudy caverns of the Earth
Re-echoed to unwonted tones of mirth
Down all their hollow arches: gnome and sprite
Crept from their crannies to behold the light
Where, in his palace court, dusk heralds cried
The joy of Hades with his shining bride.
For all about her, like a dazzling mist,
The breath of summer closely clung, and kissed
Her tender limbs with tints that shot and crossed
From shadowy aisle to aisle, until they lost
Themselves among those labyrinthine ways.
And darkness first in summer's tempered rays
Discerned itself: the pale and formless shades
That glide unconscious through those vacant glades
Gazed on each other, and were made aware
Of unexpressed desires; the stagnant air
Felt for its limits through the vaulted gloom
And trembled like a spirit freed from doom;
The Furies and the Harpy-birds that haunt
The caves of Death, whom no foul sight can daunt,
Shrank when they mirrored in each other's mien
Their own distortion; the great deep unseen
Fell open inwards: and Hades himself,
With the same wonder as his meanest elf,
Beheld the hidden glories of his land
And gauged his empire. Whereupon he planned
To make Persephone his queen, and set
Her place beside him on a throne of jet
Before his palace portal, for the eye
And centre of his conscious sovereignty.
For like a court before that palace spreads
An open space, where evermore there treads
With silent tremor o'er the sightless fields
Hell's myriad populace: all that earth yields
Of man, or beast, or creature whatsoe'er,
All that hath been or will be, boded there
In bodiless dense movement, speeds its way
To find its own ends and the light of day.
And, all around, the visionary rocks
Break backward in deep lanes whose darkness mocks
The baffled eye, whence evermore appear
Fresh phantoms, undefined, or vague, or clear,
Who join the throng before their monarch's throne
And wait his will or wilful work their own.
And whosoe'er through Hades' palace-gate
Will gaze sees only night; for all its state
Turns outward, but within is absolute
Bewilderment of vacant space and mute.
And if there be, behind the formal front,
Chambers and halls, or but their semblance on't—
Something or nothing—no man knows aright,
Save that the cloudborn legions of the night
Throng thickest here, and in a livid stream
Pass outwards like the pageant of a dream.
So, when their bridal hour was overpast,
He, Hades, from that palace-portal vast
Led forth Persephone, and in throned state
Set her beside him for his sceptre's mate.
Her chair was carven of a block of jet
Twisted to tangled snakes; for back was set
The semblance of a monstrous bat, whose wings
Folded and fanned her like half-living things;
And his was shapen a Medusa's head,
Whereon himself durst ne'er look, but the dread
Visage stared terror on each trembling one
Who craved for mercy at that dismal throne.
Now when she saw this horror, in her fear
She fell force-emptied; for the wicked leer
Of stark Medusa slew her; and the doom
Of Death and Night was hers which of her bloom
Made melancholy ending. Then the love
That Hades bore her in the realms above
Broke his fierce moody nature; at her feet
He fell and sued forgiveness from the sweet
Closed eyes and parted lips, and cried aloud,
Snatched at his hair, beat breast, and lowly bowed
His head to dust. For all, his rugged hand
Held, like a seashell on some rocky strand,
Her hand yet lifeless. Then with solemn care
He placed her palms in one, and ranged her hair
Each way upon her forehead, whence there slipt
Full many a flower that once her fingers clipt
On Enna's fields—and from her garment's fold,—
All which he gathered, like unvalued gold,
And shed upon her lap. Which duly done,
He let his dusky fingers, one by one,
Dwell on her taintless brow, as if to trace
The pure immortal beauty of her face;
Whence, passing downwards o'er her slender form,
His huge arms circling clasped her heart, yet warm,
Close to his own, while with deep pleading eyes,
Eager in grief, he gazed on his lost prize.—
And as a child, to soundest slumber charmed,
Sleeps moveless till the mother-soul, alarmed
With vague presentiment of ill, stoops o'er
His tiny couch, watching the blue veins score
The fair white forehead, and the little lips
Breathing? or breathless? till at length she slips
A finger through his light curls, and so breaks
The spell, and chides her false fears as he wakes:
So she awoke from death—or from a trance—
As though called lifeward by love's quickening glance;
And saw those night-deep orbs, which in their fire
Outshone his diamond-claspt kingly tiar,
Grown starlike in their depths with steadfast love:
A sight which so her troubled mind did move,
That with new courage she renewed her might,
And filled the heart of Hades with delight;
Who on his secret palace-threshold swore
Allegiance to her beauty evermore.
And so the gates of night and death were glad
For many a day, and sober joyance had;
And in Persephone's pale smile the shades
Revived, as flowers do when the sunlight braids
Their rainfaint petals with its vigorous beams.
And Hades at her side poured all his dreams
Into her ear: strange lore he only knew
Of light and darkness, and the livid hue
Which is not either; of the death and birth
Of all created things; and how huge Earth,
With all its furniture, hath yet no frame
Of solid bulk, but is at most a name
For that which marks the margin of two lands—
The lands of sun and shadow,—how it stands
Subject to their alliance, yet of old
How fierce antagonism availed to hold
These realms apart—his from his brother Zeus'.
And then he spake of love, and how its use
'Twixt him and her, once being gained and given
(She being daughter of the king of Heaven),
Might have rare answer in an order new
Of actual things; but chiefly did he sue
Without device of reason, with the skill
Of one who sees and hath no other will
Than what he sees. And she, Persephone,
Hearing her uncouth suitor urge his plea,
Forsook her fears, and, gazing on him long,
For the great love remembered not the wrong;
But suffered his insistance, and in time
Dwelt with him in his melancholy clime,
Not discontented, and was made the queen
Of all the underworld which is not seen.
Nevertheless, her child-heart inly yearned
After Demeter's lonely state, and turned
Backward upon the past days till she pined
And ever grew of more unquiet mind
And paler countenance; whereat at last
Hades took fear, foreboding she might cast
Aside allegiance and depart her way.
Therefore he brought her in a dish one day
Pomegranate seeds, that she might eat thereof
And know renewal and return of Love.
Now in this space Demeter, wandering o'er
The desert lands, and daily growing more
Wasted with grief and angered with the Gods,
Came to Olympus, where its grey head nods
Peace on the clustered fields about its feet.
Her cheeks were furrowed, and her hair with sleet
Was knotted, while her garments, loosely hung,
In draggled folds about her figure clung:
Whereat in heaven some flakes of laughter fell.
But she, beholding Zeus, said: ‘Is it well,
O Father of the Gods, that ye, who have
The earth in keeping, should create a grave?
For such the world is now. The King of death
Holds cavern-bound my child, and with her breath
All beauty is departed from the land;
Whereat, while tempests score and scorch and brand
The blackened world, ye in your high-built towers
Laugh at your ease, and lead the careless hours
In rounds of revel and dishonest mirth.
Give ear, O mighty Zeus, and, for this dearth
Dulls your high glory, grant Earth's fruit again,
Lest ye be nameless in the homes of men.’
Whose angry suit he heeded not at first,
But, later, when the wretched land was curst
With ruin of high rivers, rot, and blight,
For shame and pity of its mournful plight
He heard, and rendered answer to her prayer.
For Zeus had promised, in the days that were,
The child to Hades, by a secret pact
Hid from the mother, lest she should distract
His politic design thereby to bind
His brother subject by the tie of kind;
Which purpose now in part frustrated was;
For when the land fell desolate, because
This was a scandal and a crying shame
To all Olympus, and pretext of blame
To discontented mortals who forsook
Their punctual sacrifices and betook
Themselves to other gods, he broke his word,
And on quick Hermes his commands conferred.
So while, enduring still her rayless doom
Amid the mute assemblies of the gloom,
Persephone was made night's consort, there
Fell sudden on the cavern-vaulted air
A chill of fear, one moment, then the next,
As when a veil of strongly woven text
Is torn asunder, with a sequent roar
Of myriad sharp severance Night shore
Her pitchy roof, and in a ragged crack
Burst open to the light, whose shimmering track
Shot o'er a gloom of faces far and wide.
And in the sunbeams' centre there did ride
Heaven's winged messenger, who seemed to bear
Magic of colour to the sunless air;
For wheresoe'er he looked there leapt a hue,
Crimson and gold, and emerald and blue;
And hell itself was glorious; but he
Stretched hand to hand and held Persephone,
And ere astounded Hades could deny
Swept with her to the land below the sky.
And with her came the children of the Earth:
All faded shapes of beauty had new birth;
Sweet winds before her went, about her flew
Spring's flowers and, where they fell, took root and grew;
And with a clap the earth closed, and King Night
Was left a prisoner in lonely plight.
'Twas on the plain Eleusis where they met,
Mother and child; and all tearful regret
Was wiped away between them, as they sang
And held each other, and the high world rang
With happy notes; for far and wide was heard
The song of nearing Spring: each wondering bird
Whistled, and gazed up sunward, and would cease,
And still essayed to sing his heart's increase.
Through sunlit field and orchard, like clear fire,
Gay blossoms brake upon each spray and spire,
And tipped the wizened boughs, which shone like lamps
Sacred to Summer when dark Winter's damps
Are stricken by the sungod's burning bow.
In emerald and white and ruby glow
They heralded abroad high festival,
And filled the land with incense; at their call
The furrows stood arrayed in ranks of green,
The fields grew bright with poppy, flax, and bean,
Hedgerows and trees with wild and trailing vine
Were gaily garlanded, and for a sign
The lizard sat upon a sunny stone
And watched the hours fall earthward one by one.
So the Earth-mother lost and found again
Her lovely child; and all the former pain
Came back pure joy. The ways of mortals too
Were blessed because of her: a gracious dew
Fell in rich nights of increase and of calm,
Long mellow days loaded the crops with balm
And healed the wounds of Winter, and the fruit
Broke earthward from each overladen shoot
With noisy promise. Thus the summer passed.
At last came Autumn, and with high hand cast
Earth's harvest o'er its floor. Whereafter, change;
For, having in the cavern-kingdoms strange
Eaten the seeds of life, Persephone,
Obedient to love's unexpressed decree,
Each year went earthward to renew her might
And bless returning summer with the sight
Of Night's conception. So while winds blew chill,
She dwelt with Hades and the land was still.