I pick the flowers that Proserpine let fall, Sung through the world by every honeyed muse: Wild morning-glories, daisies waving tall, At every step is something new to choose; And oft I stop and gaze Upon the flowery maze; By yonder cypresses on that soft rise, Scarce seen through poppies and the knee-deep wheat, Juts the dark cleft where on her came the fleet Thunder-black horses and the cloud's surprise And he who filled the place. Did marigolds bright as these, gilding the mist, Drop from her maiden zone? Wert thou last kissed, Pale hyacinth, last seen, before his face? * * * * * Oh, whence has silence stolen on all things here, Where every sight makes music to the eye? Through all one unison is singing clear; All sounds, all colors in one rapture die. Breathe slow, O heart, breathe slow! A presence from below Moves toward the breathing world from that dark deep, Whereof men fabling tell what no man knows, By little fires amid the winter snows, When earth lies stark in her titanic sleep And doth with cold expire; He brings thee all, O Maiden flower of earth, Her child in whom all nature comes to birth, Thee, the fruition of all dark desire. * * * * * O Proserpine, dream not that thou art gone Far from our loves, half-human, half-divine; Thou hast a holier adoration won In many a heart that worships at no shrine. Where light and warmth behold me, And flower and wheat infold me, I lift a dearer prayer than all prayers past: He who so loved thee that the live earth clove Before his pathway unto light and love, And took thy flower-full bosom,--who at last Shall every blossom cull,-- Lover the most of what is most our own, The mightiest lover that the world has known, Dark lover, Death,--was he not beautiful?[154] [Illustration: FIG. 91. TRIPTOLEMUS AND THE ELEUSINIAN DEITIES] =117. Triptolemus and the Eleusinian Mysteries.= Ceres, pacified with this arrangement, restored the earth to her favor. Now she remembered, also, Celeus and his family, and her promise to his infant son Triptolemus. She taught the boy the use of the plow and how to sow the seed. She took him in her chariot, drawn by winged dragons, through all the countries of the earth; and under her guidance he imparted to mankind valuable grains and the knowledge of agriculture. After his return Triptolemus built a temple to Ceres in Eleusis and established the worship of the goddess under the name of the Eleusinian mysteries, which in the splendor and solemnity of their observance surpassed all other religious celebrations among the Greeks. [Illustration: FIG. 92. DEMETER, TRIPTOLEMUS, AND PROSERPINA]