University of Virginia Library

The dragon earth with labyrinthine toils,
Terrace on terrace wound her stony coils,
And traversed towards a hollow deeply sunk,
With writhing stone-beds bordered: there had shrunk
Wide mouths that did volcanic flames embower
To blossom, as young spring's first yellow flower
Cleaves out its pathway through the blackened ridge;
From this the white roads sped away to bridge
The bare lean-hearted hills; and in their midst
Lo Demeter! Sad goddess, wherefore didst
With thy small company of savage men,
Autochthonic, that night invade the den
Of dragon darkness and of nether light?
For, lo! the circling mists, grown infinite,
Do round themselves to many a torch and lamp;
And with wild gleams of limbs, with rolling tramp,
With shoutings, pours thy pomp: it nears the spot
Where the deep earth-fires sleep awakened not.
High in her chariot rode the goddess, crowned
With golden harvest fruits that spread around
Her shoulder, and her silver sickle's gleam
Arched lucidly her forehead, that supreme
She rode; and now the wild diviner takes
The lustral lavers and the salted cakes;
And in the hollow, folded coil on coil,
Showing earth's roots encumbered with white spoil,—
Hollow enormous, holding murky light,
Giving for ever one side severed quite
From other by the fierce sheer intervals
Of duskiness, o'er which in sullen sprawls
The red flame casts itself to colour slime,
He sang—