Is not all as I promist? Feel ye not Your earthborn ecstasy concenter'd here? 100 Tell me, Athena, of thy wisdom, whénce Cometh this joy of earth, this penetrant Palpitant exultation so unlike The balanc't calm of high Olympian state? Is't in the air, the tinted atmosphere Whose gauzy veil, thrown on the hills, will paint Their features, changing with the gradual day, Rosy or azure, clouded now, and now Again afire? Or is it that the sun's Electric beams--which shot in circling fans 110 Whirl all things with them--as they strike the earth Excite her yearning heart, till stir'd beneath The rocks and silent plains, she cannot hold Her fond desires, but sends them bursting forth In scents and colour'd blossoms of the spring?-- Breathes it not in the flowers? ATH. Fair are the flowers, Dear child; and yet to me far lovelier Than all their beauty is thy love for them. Whate'er I love, I contemplate my love More than the object, and am so rejoic'd. 120 For life is one, and like a level sea Life's flood of joy. Thou wond'rest at the flowers, But I would teach thee wonder of thy wonder; Would shew thee beauty in the desert-sand, The worth of things unreckt of, and the truth That thy desire and love may spring of evil And ugliness, and that Earth's ecstasy May dwell in darkness also, in sorrow and tears. PER. I'd not believe it: why then should we pluck The flowers and not the stalks without the flowers? 130 Or do thy stones breathe scent? Would not men laugh To see the banner of almighty Zeus Adorn'd with ragged roots and straws?--Dear Artemis, How lovest thou the flowers? _ARTEMIS._ I'll love them better Ever for thy sake, Cora; but for me The joy of Earth is in the breath of life And animal motions: nor are flowery sweets Dear as the scent of life. His petal'd cup, What is it by the wild fawn's liquid eye Eloquent as love-music 'neath the moon? 140 Nay, not a flower in all thy garden here, Nor wer't a thousand-thousand-fold enhanc't In every charm, but thou wouldst turn from it To view the antler'd stag, that in the glade With the coy gaze of his majestic fear Faced thee a moment ere he turn'd to fly. PER. But why, then, hunt and kill what thou so lovest? AR. Dost thou not pluck thy flowers? PER. 'Tis not the same. Thy victims fly for life: they pant, they scream.