The mysteries remain, I keep the same cycle of seed—time and of sun and rain; Demeter in the grass,

White, O white face— from disenchanted days wither alike dark rose and fiery bays: no gift within our hands,

I first tasted under Apollo’s lip… love and love sweetness, I, Evadne; my hair is made of crisp violets or hyacinth which the wind combs b…

Silver dust lifted from the earth, higher than my arms reach, you have mounted. O silver,

Where the slow river meets the tide, a red swan lifts red wings and darker beak, and underneath the purple down

From citron—bower be her bed, cut from branch of tree a—flower, fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, cut the width of board and lathe,

NOR skin nor hide nor fleece Shall cover you, Nor curtain of crimson nor fine Shelter of cedar—wood be over you, Nor the fir—tree

So you have swept me back, I who could have walked with the l… above the earth, I who could have slept among the l… at last;

Bear me to Dictaeus, and to the steep slopes; to the river Erymanthus. I choose spray of dittany, cyperum, frail of flower,

I should have thought in a dream you would have brought some lovely, perilous thing, orchids piled in a great sheath, as who would say (in a dream),

Hymen, O Hymen king, what bitter thing is this? what shaft, tearing my heart? what scar, what light, what fire searing my eye—balls and my eyes w…