Persephone Returning to Hades

Last night I made my pillow of the leaves Frostily sweet, and lay throughout the hours Close to the woven roots of the earth; O earth, Great mother, did the dread foreknowledge run Through all thy veins and trouble thee in thy sleep? No sleep was mine. Where my faint hands had fallen Wide on thy grass, pale violets, ere the day, Grew like to sorrow's self made visible, Each with a tear at heart. I watched the stars Wheeling athwart the heavens, and knew thy trees, Olive and aspen, oak and sycamore, And all the small dumb brethren of thy woods Awake and sorrowing with me. And so staid Until the shepherds' song awoke the morn.

Then I arose with tears. Yet, ere I turned From these dim meadows to the doors of hell, Gathered these sad untimely flowers, and found Long beautiful berries ripening on the thorn, With one wide rose that had forgot to die. These I bore softly hence. But herewithin This gathering-place of shadows where I wait For the slow change, there cometh a sullen wind Blown from the memoried fields of asphodel Or Lethe's level stream; and these my flowers Slip from my hands and are but shadows too.

Why should I grieve when grief is overpast? Why should I sorrow when I may forget? The shepherds' horns are crying about the folds, The east is clear and yellow as daffodils, Dread daffodils— The brightest flower o' the fields. I gathered them in Enna, O, my lord. Do the doors yawn and their dim warders wait?

What was this earth-born memory I would hold? Almost I have forgotten. Lord, I see Before, the vast gray suburbs of the dead; Behind, the golden loneliness of the woods, A stir of wandering birds, and in the brake A small brown faun who follows me and weeps.