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.

And daily Earth declined from its estate;
For now the gracious mother, wont to wait
Upon its every need, forgot her care:

A nipping frost, favoured by sunless air,
Blackened the tender blade; the woodland deer,
Breaking their limits, browsed each slender spear
Of forecome wheat and barley, and a blight

Ate up the whole year's bloom; the peasant wight

Left off to trim and tie his leafless vine,

Turned from the dying crops and air malign
Into his cottage shelter, and besought

The careless Gods to stay the ruin wrought,
Where, all without, the hedgeless fields, forlorn
Of any fruit, by wind and rain were torn,
And furrowed in strange fashion like a sea.
So after many days, spent wearily
In hapless wanderings, Demeter heard

A voice about the dark, as of a bird

Singing ere dawn, and took some hope therefrom;
And when unto the singer she was come,
Holding her torch on high, for 'twas dead night,
She saw pale Hecate, in raiment white,

Peering about the land in search of charms
For secret uses, whom, with pleading arms,
She cried unto: 'O skilful Hecate,

To whom night is as day, for thou canst see
Things hidden from thy brother the broad sun,
Thou surely hast beheld, and sought and won
Some comfort for me. For a robber fate
Of my loved child has left me desolate,
And all the land weeps with me while I weep,

And wonder what uncompassed kingdoms keep