Ar. Give me thy hand.
Per. Stay! stay! I have left my flowers.
I follow.
[Exeunt Athena and Artemis.
[Persephone returning to right slowly.
They understand not—Now, praise be to Zeus, 261
That, tho' I sprang not from his head, I know
Something that Pallas knows not.
[She has come to where her basket lies. In stooping towards it she kneels to pluck a flower: and then comes to sit on a bank with the basket in hand on her knees, facing the audience.]
Thou tiny flower!
Art thou not wise?
Who taught thee else, thou frail anemone,
Thy starry notion, thy wind-wavering motion,
Thy complex of chaste beauty, unimagin'd
Till thou art seen?—And how so wisely, thou,
Indifferent to the number of thy rays, 270
While others are so strict? This six-leaved tulip,
—He would not risk a seventh for all his worth—
He thought to attain unique magnificence
By sheer simplicity—a pointed oval
Bare on a stalk erect: and yet, grown old
He will his young idea quite abandon,{60}
In his dishevel'd fury wantoning
Beyond belief. … Some are four-leaved: this poppy
Will have but four. He, like a hurried thief,
Stuffs his rich silks into too small a bag—280
I think he watch'd a summer-butterfly
Creep out all crumpled from his winter-case,
Trusting the sun to smooth his tender tissue
And sleek the velvet of his painted wings:—
And so doth he.—Between such different schemes,
Such widely varied loveliness, how choose?
Yet loving all, one should be most belov'd,
Most intimately mine; to mortal men
My emblem: tho' I never find in one
The sum of all distinctions.—Rose were best: 290
But she is passion's darling, and unkind
To handle—set her by.—Choosing for odour,
The violet were mine—men call her modest,
Because she hides, and when in company
Lacks manner and the assertive style of worth:—
While this narcissus here scorns modesty,
Will stand up what she is, tho' something prim:
Her scent, a saturation of one tone,
Like her plain symmetry, leaves nought to fancy:—
Whereas this iris—she outvieth man's 300
Excellent artistry; elaboration
Confounded with simplicity, till none
Can tell which sprang of which. Coud I but find
A scented iris, I should be content:
Yet men would call me proud: Iris is Pride.—
To-day I'll favour thee, sweet violet;
Thou canst live in my bosom. I'll not wrong thee
Wearing thee in Olympus.—Help! help! Ay me!
[Persephone rises to her feet, and amidst a contrivance of confused darkness Hades is seen rushing from behind. He seizes her and drags her backward. Her basket is thrown up and the flowers scattered.]
ACT II
CHORUS.
I (α)
Bright day succeedeth unto day—
Night to pensive night—310
With his towering ray
Of all-fathering light—
With the solemn trance
Of her starry dance.—
Nought is new or strange
In the eternal change.—
As the light clouds fly
O'er the tree-tops high,
So the days go by.—
Ripples that arrive 320
On the sunny shore,
Dying to their live
Music evermore.—
Like pearls on a thread—
Like notes of a song—
Like the measur'd tread
Of a dancing throng.—
(β)
Ocëanides are we,
Nereids of the foam,
But we left the sea 330
On the earth to roam
With the fairest Queen
That the world hath seen.—{62}
Why amidst our play
Was she sped away?—
Over hill and plain
We have sought in vain;
She comes not again.—
Not the Naiads knew
On their dewy lawns:—340
Not the laughing crew
Of the leaping Fauns.—
Now, since she is gone,
All our dance is slow,
All our joy is done,
And our song is woe.—
II
Saw ye the mighty Mother, where she went
Searching the land?
Nor night nor day resting from her lament,
With smoky torch in hand. 350
Her godhead in the passion of a sorrow spent
Which not her mind coud suffer, nor heart withstand?—
2
Enlanguor'd like a fasting lioness,
That prowls around
Robb'd of her whelps, in fury comfortless
Until her lost be found:
Implacable and terrible in her wild distress;
And thro' the affrighted country her roars resound.—
3
But lo! what form is there? Thine eyes awaken!
See! see! O say, 360
Is not that she, the furious, the forsaken?
She cometh, lo! this way;
Her golden-rippling hair upon her shoulders shaken,
And all her visage troubled with deep dismay.
{63}
DEMETER (entering).
Here