PROSERPINA.

Dear Mother, leave me not! I love to rest

Under the shadow of that hanging cave

And listen to your tales. Your Proserpine

Entreats you stay; sit on this shady bank,

And as I twine a wreathe tell once again

The combat of the Titans and the Gods;

Or how the Python fell beneath the dart

Of dread Apollo; or of Daphne’s change,—

That coyest Grecian maid, whose pointed leaves

Now shade her lover’s brow. And I the while

Gathering the starry flowers of this fair plain

Will weave a chaplet, Mother, for thy hair.

But without thee, the plain I think is vacant,

Its  ¹ blossoms fade,—its tall fresh grasses droop,

Nodding their heads like dull things half asleep;—

Go not, dear Mother, from your Proserpine.

CERES.

My lovely child, it is high Jove’s command:—

The golden self-moved seats surround his throne,

The nectar is poured out by Ganymede,

And the ambrosia fills the golden baskets;

They drink, for Bacchus is already there,

But none will eat till I dispense the food.

I must away—dear Proserpine, farewel!—

Eunoe can tell thee how the giants fell;

Or dark-eyed Ino sing the saddest change

Of Syrinx or of Daphne, or the doom

Of impious Prometheus, and the boy

Of fair Pandora, Mother of mankind.

This only charge I leave thee and thy nymphs,—

Depart not from each other; be thou circled

By that fair guard, and then no earth-born Power

Would tempt my wrath, and steal thee from their sight[.]

But wandering alone, by feint or force,

You might be lost, and I might never know

Thy hapless fate. Farewel, sweet daughter mine,

Remember my commands.

PROSERPINA.

—Mother, farewel!

Climb the bright sky with rapid wings; and swift

As a beam shot from great Apollo’s bow

Rebounds from the calm mirror of the sea

Back to his quiver in the Sun, do thou

Return again to thy loved Proserpine.

And now, dear Nymphs, while the hot sun is high

Darting his influence right upon the plain,

Let us all sit beneath the narrow shade

That noontide Etna casts.—And, Ino, sweet,

Come hither; and while idling thus we rest,

Repeat in verses sweet the tale which says

How great Prometheus from Apollo’s car

Stole heaven’s fire—a God-like gift for Man!

Or the more pleasing tale of Aphrodite;

How she arose from the salt Ocean’s foam,

And sailing in her pearly shell, arrived

On Cyprus sunny shore, where myrtles  ² bloomed

And sweetest flowers, to welcome Beauty’s Queen;

And ready harnessed on the golden sands

Stood milk-white doves linked to a sea-shell car,

With which she scaled the heavens, and took her seat

Among the admiring Gods.

PROSERPINA.

Ino, you knew erewhile a River-God,

Who loved you well and did you oft entice

To his transparent waves and flower-strewn banks.

He loved high poesy and wove sweet sounds,

And would sing to you as you sat reclined

On the fresh grass beside his shady cave,

From which clear waters bubbled, dancing forth,

And spreading freshness in the noontide air.

When you returned you would enchant our ears

With tales and songs which did entice the fauns,  ³

With Pan their King from their green haunts, to hear.

Tell me one now, for like the God himself,

Tender they were and fanciful, and wrapt

The hearer in sweet dreams of shady groves,

Blue skies, and clearest, pebble-paved streams.

INO.

I will repeat the tale which most I loved;

Which tells how lily-crowned Arethusa,

Your favourite Nymph, quitted her native Greece,

Flying the liquid God Alpheus, who followed,

Cleaving the desarts of the pathless deep,

And rose in Sicily, where now she flows

The clearest spring of Enna’s gifted plain.

        Arethusa arose

        From her couch of snows,

    In the Acroceraunian mountains,—

        From cloud, and from crag,

        With many a jag,

    Shepherding her bright fountains.

        She leapt down the rocks

        With her rainbow locks,

    Streaming among the streams,—

        Her steps paved with green

        The downward ravine,

    Which slopes to the Western gleams:—

        And gliding and springing,

        She went, ever singing

    In murmurs as soft as sleep;

        The Earth seemed to love her

        And Heaven smiled above her,

    As she lingered towards the deep.

        Then Alpheus bold

        On his glacier cold,

    With his trident the mountains strook;

        And opened a chasm

        In the rocks;—with the spasm

    All Erymanthus shook.

        And the black south wind

        It unsealed behind

    The urns of the silent snow,

        And earthquake and thunder

        Did rend in sunder

    The bars of the springs below:—

        And the beard and the hair

        Of the river God were

    Seen through the torrent’s sweep

        As he followed the light

        Of the fleet nymph’s flight

    To the brink of the Dorian deep.

        Oh, save me! oh, guide me!

        And bid the deep hide me,

    For he grasps me now by the hair!

        The loud ocean heard,

        To its blue depth stirred,

    And divided at her prayer[,]

        And under the water

        The Earth’s white daughter

    Fled like a sunny beam,

        Behind her descended

        Her billows unblended

    With the brackish Dorian stream:—

        Like a gloomy stain

        On the Emerald main

    Alpheus rushed behind,

        As an eagle pursueing

        A dove to its ruin,

    Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

        Under the bowers

        Where the Ocean Powers

    Sit on their pearled thrones,

        Through the coral woods

        Of the weltering floods,

    Over heaps of unvalued stones;

        Through the dim beams,

        Which amid the streams

    Weave a network of coloured light,

        And under the caves,

        Where the shadowy waves

    Are as green as the forest’s  ⁵ night:—

        Outspeeding the shark,

        And the sword fish dark,

    Under the Ocean foam,  ⁶

        And up through the rifts

        Of the mountain clifts,

    They passed to their Dorian Home.

        And now from their fountains

        In Enna’s mountains,

    Down one vale where the morning basks,

        Like friends once parted,

        Grown single hearted

    They ply their watery tasks.

        At sunrise they leap

        From their cradles steep

    In the cave of the shelving hill[,—]

        At noontide they flow

        Through the woods below

    And the meadows of asphodel,—

        And at night they sleep

        In the rocking deep

    Beneath the Ortygian shore;—

        Like spirits that lie

        In the azure sky,

    When they love, but live no more.

PROSERPINA.

Thanks, Ino dear, you have beguiled an hour

With poesy that might make pause to list

The nightingale in her sweet evening song.

But now no more of ease and idleness,

The sun stoops to the west, and Enna’s plain

Is overshadowed by the growing form

Of giant Etna:—Nymphs, let us arise,

And cull the sweetest flowers of the field,

And with swift fingers twine a blooming wreathe

For my dear Mother’s rich and waving hair.

EUNOE.

Violets blue and white anemonies

Bloom on the plain,—but I will climb the brow

Of that o’erhanging hill, to gather thence

That loveliest rose, it will adorn thy crown;

Ino, guard Proserpine till my return.

INO.

How lovely is this plain!—Nor Grecian vale,

Nor bright Ausonia’s ilex bearing shores,

The myrtle bowers of Aphrodite’s sweet isle,

Or Naxos burthened with the luscious vine,

Can boast such fertile or such verdant fields

As these, which young Spring sprinkles with her stars;—

Nor Crete which boasts fair Amalthea’s horn

Can be compared with the bright golden  ⁷ fields

Of Ceres, Queen of plenteous Sicily.

PROSERPINA.

Sweet Ino, well I know the love you bear

My dearest Mother prompts your partial voice,

And that love makes you doubly dear to me.

But you are idling,—look[,] my lap is full

Of sweetest flowers;—haste to gather more,

That before sunset we may make our crown.

Last night as we strayed through that glade, methought

The wind that swept my cheek bore on its wings

The scent of fragrant violets, hid

Beneath the straggling underwood; Haste, sweet,

To gather them; fear not—I will not stray.

PROSERPINA.

(sings as she gathers her flowers.)

    Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,

        Thou from whose immortal bosom

    Gods, and men, and beasts have birth,

        Leaf, and blade, and bud, and blossom,

  Breathe thine influence most divine

  On thine own child Proserpine.

    If with mists of evening dew

        Thou dost nourish these young flowers

    Till they grow in scent and hue

        Fairest children of the hours[,]

  Breathe thine influence most divine

  On thine own child Proserpine.

My nymphs have left me, neglecting the commands

Of my dear Mother. Where can they have strayed?

Her caution makes me fear to be alone;—

I’ll pass that yawning cave and seek the spring

Of Arethuse, where water-lilies bloom

Perhaps the nymph now wakes tending her waves,

She loves me well and oft desires my stay,—

The lilies shall adorn my mother’s crown.

EUNOE.

I’ve won my prize! look at this fragrant rose!

But where is Proserpine? Ino has strayed

Too far I fear, and she will be fatigued,

As I am now, by my long toilsome search.

INO.

My lap’s heaped up with sweets; dear Proserpine,

You will not chide me now for idleness;—

Look here are all the treasures of the field,—

First these fresh violets, which crouched beneath

A mossy rock, playing at hide and seek

With both the sight and sense through the high fern;

Star-eyed narcissi & the drooping bells

Of hyacinths; and purple polianthus,

Delightful flowers are these; but where is she,

The loveliest of them all, our Mistress dear?

EUNOE.

I know not, even now I left her here,

Guarded by you, oh Ino, while I climbed

Up yonder steep for this most worthless rose:—

Know you not where she is? Did you forget

Ceres’ behest, and thus forsake her child?

INO.

Chide not, unkind Eunoe, I but went

Down that dark glade, where underneath the shade

Of those high trees the sweetest violets grow,—

I went at her command. Alas! Alas!

My heart sinks down; I dread she may be lost;—

Eunoe, climb the hill, search that ravine,

Whose close, dark sides may hide her from our view:—

Oh, dearest, haste! Is that her snow-white robe?

EUNOE.

No;—’tis a faun ⁸ beside its sleeping Mother,

Browsing the grass;—what will thy Mother say,

Dear Proserpine, what will bright Ceres feel,

If her return be welcomed not by thee?

INO.

These are wild thoughts,—& we are wrong to fear

That any ill can touch the child of heaven;

She is not lost,—trust me, she has but strayed

Up some steep mountain path, or in yon dell,

Or to the rock where yellow wall-flowers grow,

Scaling with venturous step the narrow path

Which the goats fear to tread;—she will return

And mock our fears.

EUNOE.

The sun now dips his beams

In the bright sea; Ceres descends at eve

From Jove’s high conclave; if her much-loved child

Should meet her not in yonder golden field,

Where to the evening wind the ripe grain waves

Its yellow head, how will her heart misgive.

Let us adjure the Naiad of yon brook[,]

She may perchance have seen our Proserpine,

And tell us to what distant field she’s strayed:—

Wait thou, dear Ino, here, while I repair

To the tree-shaded source of her swift stream.

INO.

Why does my heart misgive? & scalding tears,

That should but mourn, now prophecy her loss?

Oh, Proserpine! Where’er your luckless fate

Has hurried you,—to wastes of desart sand,

Or black Cymmerian cave, or dread Hell,

Yet Ino still will follow! Look where Eunoe

Comes, with down cast eyes and faltering steps,

I fear the worst;—

EUNOE.

Alas, all hope is vanished! Hymera says

She slept the livelong day while the hot beams

Of Phœbus drank her waves;—nor did she wake

Until her reed-crowned head was wet with dew;—

If she had passed her grot she slept the while.

INO.

Alas! Alas! I see the golden car,

And hear the flapping of the dragons wings,

Ceres descends to Earth. I dare not stay,

I dare not meet the sorrow of her look[,]

The angry glance of her severest eyes.

EUNOE.

Quick up the mountain! I will search the dell,

She must return, or I will never more.

INO.

And yet I will not fly, though I fear much

Her angry frown and just reproach, yet shame

Shall quell this childish fear, all hope of safety

For her lost child rests but in her high power,

And yet I tremble as I see her come.

CERES.

Where is my daughter? have I aught to dread?

Where does she stray? Ino, you answer not;—

She was aye wont to meet me in yon field,—

Your looks bode ill;—I fear my child is lost.

INO.

Eunoe now seeks her track among the woods;

Fear not, great Ceres, she has only strayed.

CERES.

Alas! My boding heart,—I dread the worst.

Oh, careless nymphs! oh, heedless Proserpine!

And did you leave her wandering by herself?

She is immortal,—yet unusual fear

Runs through my veins. Let all the woods be sought,

Let every dryad, every gamesome faun  ⁹

Tell where they last beheld her snowy feet

Tread the soft, mossy paths of the wild wood.

But that I see the base of Etna firm

I well might fear that she had fallen a prey

To Earth-born Typheus, who might have arisen

And seized her as the fairest child of heaven,

That in his dreary caverns she lies bound;

It is not so: all is as safe and calm

As when I left my child. Oh, fatal day!

Eunoe does not return: in vain she seeks

Through the black woods and down the darksome glades,

And night is hiding all things from our view.

I will away, and on the highest top

Of snowy Etna, kindle two clear flames.

Night shall not hide her from my anxious search,

No moment will I rest, or sleep, or pause

Till she returns, until I clasp again

My only loved one, my lost Proserpine.