Proserpine and Midas Read Online Free PDF Page B

jag, Shepherding her bright fountains. She leapt down the rocks With her rainbow locks, Streaming among the streams,-- Her steps paved with green [5] 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 [6] 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 [7] 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 [Footnote: The intended place of the apostrophe is not clear.] night:-- Outspeeding the shark, And the sword fish dark, Under the Ocean foam, [Footnote: MS.
Ocean' foam
as if a genitive was meant; but cf.
Ocean foam
in the Song of Apollo (
Midas
).] 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 [8] 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.
    Pros.
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 [9] Of that o'erhanging hill, to gather thence That loveliest rose, it will adorn thy crown; Ino, guard Proserpine till my return.
    (
Exit.
)
    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 [Footnote: MS.
the bright gold fields.
] fields Of Ceres, Queen of plenteous Sicily.
    Pros.
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