By the grey sea-side, unassuaged, unheard of, Unbeloved, unseen in the ebb of twilight, Ghosts of outcast women return lamenting, Purged not in Lethe, Clothed about with flame and with tears, and singing Songs that move the heart of the shaken heaven, Songs that break the heart of the earth with pity, Hearing, to hear them. AT ELEUSIS Men of Eleusis, ye that with long staves Sit in the market-houses, and speak words Made sweet with wisdom as the rare wine is Thickened with honey; and ye sons of these Who in the glad thick streets go up and down For pastime or grave traffic or mere chance; And all fair women having rings of gold On hands or hair; and chiefest over these I name you, daughters of this man the king, Who dipping deep smooth pitchers of pure brass Under the bubbled wells, till each round lip Stooped with loose gurgle of waters incoming, Found me an old sick woman, lamed and lean, Beside a growth of builded olive-boughs Whence multiplied thick song of thick-plumed throats-- Also wet tears filled up my hollow hands By reason of my crying into them-- And pitied me; for as cold water ran And washed the pitchers full from lip to lip, So washed both eyes full the strong salt of tears. And ye put water to my mouth, made sweet With brown hill-berries; so in time I spoke And gathered my loose knees from under me. Moreover in the broad fair halls this month Have I found space and bountiful abode To please me. I Demeter speak of this, Who am the mother and the mate of things: For as ill men by drugs or singing words Shut the doors inward of the narrowed womb Like a lock bolted with round iron through, Thus I shut up the body and sweet mouth Of all soft pasture and the tender land, So that no seed can enter in by it Though one sow thickly, nor some grain get out Past the hard clods men cleave and bite with steel To widen the sealed lips of them for use. None of you is there in the peopled street But knows how all the dry-drawn furrows ache With no green spot made count of in the black: How the wind finds no comfortable grass Nor is assuaged with bud nor breath of herbs; And in hot autumn when ye house the stacks, All fields are helpless in the sun, all trees Stand as a man stripped out of all but skin. Nevertheless ye sick have help to get By means and stablished ordinance of God; For God is wiser than a good man is. But never shall new grass be sweet in earth Till I get righted of my wound and wrong By changing counsel of ill-minded Zeus. For of all other gods is none save me Clothed with like power to build and break the year. I make the lesser green begin, when spring Touches not earth but with one fearful foot; And as a careful gilder with grave art Soberly colours and completes the face, Mouth, chin and all, of some sweet work in stone, I carve the shapes of grass and tender corn