Indulge her girlish fancy, gathering flowers
To deck the banner of my golden brother,
Whose thought they guess not, tho' their presence here
Affront his will and mine. If once alone 50
I spy her, I can snatch her swiftly down:
And after shall find favour for my fault,
When I by gentle means have won her love.
I hear their music now. Hither they come:
I'll to my ambush in the rocky cave. [Exit.
{53}
ACT I
Enter Chorus of Oceanides, with baskets.
OCEANIDES.
Gay and lovely is earth, man's decorate dwelling;
With fresh beauty ever varying hour to hour.
As now bathed in azure joy she awakeneth
With bright morn to the sun's life-giving effluence,
Or sunk into solemn darkness aneath the stars 60
In mysterious awe slumbereth out the night,
Then from darkness again plunging again to day;
Like dolphins in a swift herd that accompany
Poseidon's chariot when he rebukes the waves.
But no country to me 'neath the enarching air
Is fair as Sicily's flowery fruitful isle:
Always lovely, whether winter adorn the hills
With his silvery snow, or generous summer
Outpour her heavy gold on the river-valleys.
Her rare beauty giveth gaiety unto man, 70
A delite dear to immortals.
2
And one season of all chiefly deliteth us,
When fair Spring is afield. O happy is the Spring!
Now birds early arouse their pretty minstreling;
Now down its rocky hill murmureth ev'ry rill;
Now all bursteth anew, wantoning in the dew
Their bells of bonny blue, their chalices honey'd.
Unkind frost is away; now sunny is the day;
Now man thinketh aright, Life it is all delite.
Now maids playfully dance o'er enamel'd meadows, 80
And with goldy blossom deck forehead and bosom;
While old Pan rollicketh thro' the budding shadows,
Voicing his merry reed, laughing aloud to lead
The echoes madly rejoicing.
{54}
3
We be Oceanids, Persephone's lovers,
Who all came hurrying joyfully from the sea
Ere daybreak to obey her belovëd summons.
At her fancy to pluck these violets, lilies,
Windflow'rs and daffodils, all for a festival
Whereat shé will adorn Zeuses honour'd banner. 90
And with Persephone there cometh Artemis
And grave Pallas … Hilloo! Already they approach!
Haste, haste! Stoop to gather! Seem busy ev'ryone!
Crowd all your wicker arcs with the meadow-lilies;
Lest our disreverenc'd deity should rebuke
The divine children of Ocean.
[Enter Athena, Persephone, and Artemis. Persephone has a basket half fill'd with gather'd flowers.]
ATHENA.
These then are Enna's flowery fields, and here
In midmost isle the garden of thy choice?
PERSEPHONE.
Is not all as I promist? Feel ye not
Your earthborn ecstasy concenter'd here? 100
Tell me, Athena, of thy wisdom, whénce
Cometh this joy of earth, this penetrant
Palpitant exultation so unlike
The balanc't calm of high Olympian state?
Is't in the air, the tinted atmosphere
Whose gauzy veil, thrown on the hills, will paint
Their features, changing with the gradual day,
Rosy or azure, clouded now, and now
Again afire? Or is it that the sun's
Electric beams—which shot in circling fans 110
Whirl all things with them—as they strike the earth
Excite her yearning heart, till stir'd beneath{55}
The rocks and silent plains, she cannot hold
Her fond desires, but sends them bursting forth
In scents and colour'd blossoms of the spring?—
Breathes it not in the flowers?
Ath. Fair are the flowers,
Dear child; and yet to me far lovelier
Than all their beauty is thy love for them.
Whate'er I love, I contemplate my love
More than the object, and am so rejoic'd. 120
For life is one, and like a level sea
Life's flood of joy. Thou wond'rest at the flowers,
But I would teach thee wonder of thy wonder;
Would shew thee beauty in the desert-sand,
The worth of things unreckt of, and the truth
That thy desire and love may spring of evil
And ugliness, and that Earth's ecstasy
May dwell in darkness also, in sorrow and tears.
Per. I'd not believe it: why then should we pluck
The flowers and not the stalks without the flowers? 130
Or do thy stones breathe scent? Would not men laugh
To see the banner of almighty Zeus
Adorn'd with ragged roots and straws?—Dear Artemis,
How lovest thou the flowers?
ARTEMIS.
I'll love them better
Ever for thy sake, Cora; but for me
The joy of Earth is in the breath of life
And animal motions: nor are flowery sweets
Dear as the scent of life. His petal'd cup,
What is it by the wild fawn's liquid eye
Eloquent as love-music 'neath the moon? 140
Nay, not a flower in all thy garden here,
Nor wer't a thousand-thousand-fold enhanc't
In every charm, but thou wouldst turn from it
To view the antler'd stag, that in the glade{56}
With the coy gaze of his majestic fear
Faced thee a moment ere he turn'd to fly.
Per. But why, then, hunt and kill what thou so lovest?
Ar. Dost thou not pluck thy flowers?
Per. 'Tis not the same.