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 :--
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.

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,

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.

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350

360

DEMETER (entering).

Here is the hateful spot, the hollow rock Whence the fierce ravisher sprang forth

(seeing the nymphs) Ah! ye!

I know you well: ye are the nymphs of Ocean.

Ye, graceful as your watery names

And idle as the mimic flames

That skip upon his briny floor,
When the hot sun smiteth thereo'er ;
Why did ye leave your native waves?
Did false Poseidon, to my hurt
Leagued with my foe, bid you desert
Your opalescent pearly caves,
Your dances on the shelly strand?

CH. Poseidon gave us no command,
Lady; it was thy child Persephone,
Whose beauty drew us from the sea.

370

DEM. Il company ye lent, ill-fated guards!

How was she stolen from your distracted eyes?

380

CH. There, where thou standest now, stood she com

panion'd

By wise Athena and bright Artemis.

We in flower-gathering dance and idle song

Were wander'd off apart; we fear'd no wrong.

DEM. In heav'n I heard her cry: ye nothing heard?

CH. We heard no cry-How coudst thou hear in heaven?

Ask us not of her :-we have nought to tell.

DEM. I seek not knowledge of you, for I know.

CH. Thou knowest? Ah, mighty Queen, deign then to tell If thou hast found her. Tell us tell us-tell!

DEM. Oh, there are calls that love can hear,

That strike not on the outward ear.

None heard save I: but with a dart

Of lightning-pain it pierc'd my heart,

391

That call for aid, that cry of fear.
It echo'd from the mountain-steeps
Down to the dark of Ocean-deeps;
O'er all the isle, from ev'ry hill

It pierc'd my heart and echoes still,

Ay me! Ay me!

CH. Where is she, O mighty Queen?-Tell us-O tell!—

DEM. Swift unto earth, in frenzy led

By Cora's cry, from heav'n I sped.
Immortal terror froze my mind:
I fear'd, ev'n as I yearn'd to find
My child, my joy, faln from my care
Wrong'd or distresst, I knew not where,
Cora, my Cora!

Nor thought I whither first to fly,

Answ'ring the appeal of that wild cry:
But still it drew me till I came

To Enna, calling still her name,

Cora, my Cora!

CH. If thou hast found her, tell us, Queen, O tell!
DEM. Nine days I wander'd o'er the land.

From Enna to the eastern strand

I sought, and when the first night came

I lit my torch in Etna's flame.

But neither 'mid the chestnut woods
That rustle o'er his stony floods;
Nor yet at daybreak on the meads
Where bountiful Symaethus leads
His chaunting boatmen to the main ;
Nor where the road on Hybla's plain
Is skirted by the spacious corn;
Nor where embattled Syracuse
With lustrous temple fronts the morn;
Nor yet by dolphin'd Arethuse;
Nor when I crossed Anapus wide,
Where Cyane, his reedy bride,

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420

430

Uprushing from her crystal well,
Doth not his cold embrace repel;
Nor yet by western Eryx, where
Gay Aphrodite high in air

Beams gladness from her marble chair;
Nor 'mong the mountains that enfold.
Panormos in her shell of gold,

Found I my Cora: no reply

Came to my call, my helpless cry,

Cora, my Cora!

CH. Hast thou not found her, then? Tell us—O tell!

DEM. What wonder that I never found

Her whom I sought on mortal ground,
When she-(now will ye understand?)-
Dwelt in the land that is no land,
The fruitless and unseason'd plain
Where all lost things are found again ;
Where man's distract imaginings
Head-downward hang on bat-like wings,
'Mid mummied hopes, sleep-walking cares,
Crest-faln illusions and despairs,

The tortur'd memories of crime,

The outcasts of forgotten time?

CH. Where is she, Queen ?—where?—where?
DEM.

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450

Nor had I known,

Had not himself high Helios seen and told me.
CH. Alas! Alas! we cannot understand-

We pray, dear Queen, may great Zeus comfort thee.

DEм. Yea, pray to Zeus; but pray ye for yourselves,
That he have pity on you, for there is need.
Or let Zeus hear a strange, unwonted prayer
That in his peril he will aid himself;
For I have said, nor coud his Stygian oath
Add any sanction to a mother's word,
That, if he give not back my daughter to me,
Him will I slay, and lock his pining ghost

460

In sleepy prisons of unhallowing hell.

CH. (aside). Alas! alas! she is distraught with grief.-
What comfort can we make?-How reason with her?— 469
(to D.) This coud not be, great Queen. How coud it be
That Zeus should be destroy'd, or thou destroy him?
DEM. Yea, and you too: so make your prayer betimes.
CH. We pray thee, Lady, sit thou on this bank
And we will bring thee food; or if thou thirst,
Water. We know too in what cooling caves

The sly Fauns have bestow'd their skins of wine.
DEM. Ye simple creatures, I need not these things,
And stand above your pity. Think ye me
A woman of the earth derang'd with grief?
Nay, nay but I have pity on your pity,
And for your kindness I will ease the trouble
Wherewith it wounds your gentleness: attend!
Ye see this jewel here, that from my neck
Hangs by this golden chain.

"Tis of Persephone.

CH.

480

[They crowd near to see.

Look, 'tis a picture,

How? Is that she?—

A crown she weareth.-She was never wont

Thus . . .-nor her robe thus-and her countenance
Hath not the smile which drew us from the sea.

DEM. Daedalus cut it, in the year he made

The Zibian Aphrodite, and Hephaestus

490

O'erlookt and praised the work. I treasure it
Beyond all other jewels that I have,

And on this chain I guard it. Say now: think ye
It cannot fall loose until every link

Of all the chain be broken, or if one

Break, will it fall?

CH.

Surely if one break, Lady,

The chain is broken and the jewel falls.

DEM. 'Tis so. Now hearken diligently. All life

Is as this chain, and Zeus is as the jewel.