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     And colour the ripe edges and long spikes     With the red increase and the grace of gold.     No tradesman in soft wools is cunninger     To kill the secret of the fat white fleece     With stains of blue and purple wrought in it.     Three moons were made and three moons burnt away     While I held journey hither out of Crete     Comfortless, tended by grave Hecate     Whom my wound stung with double iron point;     For all my face was like a cloth wrung out     With close and weeping wrinkles, and both lids     Sodden with salt continuance of tears.     For Hades and the sidelong will of Zeus     And that lame wisdom that has writhen feet,     Cunning, begotten in the bed of Shame,     These three took evil will at me, and made     Such counsel that when time got wing to fly     This Hades out of summer and low fields     Forced the bright body of Persephone:     Out of pure grass, where she lying down, red flowers     Made their sharp little shadows on her sides,     Pale heat, pale colour on pale maiden flesh     And chill water slid over her reddening feet,     Killing the throbs in their soft blood; and birds,     Perched next her elbow and pecking at her hair,     Stretched their necks more to see her than even to sing.     A sharp thing is it I have need to say;     For Hades holding both white wrists of hers     Unloosed the girdle and with knot by knot     Bound her between his wheels upon the seat,     Bound her pure body, holiest yet and dear     To me and God as always, clothed about     With blossoms loosened as her knees went down,     Let fall as she let go of this and this     By tens and twenties, tumbled to her feet,     White waifs or purple of the pasturage.     Therefore with only going up and down     My feet were wasted, and the gracious air,     To me discomfortable and dun, became     As weak smoke blowing in the under world.     And finding in the process of ill days     What part had Zeus herein, and how as mate     He coped with Hades, yokefellow in sin,     I set my lips against the meat of gods     And drank not neither ate or slept in heaven.     Nor in the golden greeting of their mouths     Did ear take note of me, nor eye at all     Track my feet going in the ways of them.     Like a great fire on some strait slip of land     Between two washing inlets of wet sea     That burns the grass up to each lip of beach     And strengthens, waxing in the growth of wind,     So burnt my soul in me at heaven and earth,     Each way a ruin and a hungry plague,     Visible evil; nor could any night     Put cool between mine eyelids, nor the sun     With competence of gold fill out my want.     Yea so my flame burnt up the grass and stones,     Shone to the salt-white edges of thin sea,     Distempered all the gracious work, and made     Sick change, unseasonable increase of days     And scant avail of seasons; for by this     The fair gods faint in hollow heaven: there comes     No taste of burnings of the twofold fat     To leave their palates smooth, nor in their lips     Soft rings of smoke and weak scent wandering;     All cattle waste and rot, and their ill smell     Grows alway from the lank unsavoury flesh     That no man slays for offering; the sea     And waters moved between the heath and corn     Preserve the people of fin-twinkling fish,     And river-flies feed thick upon the smooth;     But all earth over is no man or bird     (Except the sweet race of the kingfisher)     That lacks not and is wearied with much loss.     Meantime the purple inward of the house     Was softened with all grace of scent and sound     In ear and nostril perfecting my praise;     Faint grape-flowers and cloven honey-cake     And the just grain with dues of the shed salt     Made me content: yet my hand loosened not     Its gripe upon your harvest all year long.     While I, thus woman-muffled in wan flesh     And waste externals of a perished face,     Preserved the levels of my wrath and love     Patiently ruled; and with soft offices     Cooled the sharp noons and busied the warm nights     In care of this my choice, this child my choice,     Triptolemus, the kings selected son:     That this fair yearlong body, which hath grown     Strong with strange milk upon the mortal lip     And nerved with half a god, might so increase     Outside the bulk and the bare scope of man:     And waxen over large to hold within     Base breath of yours and this impoverished air,     I might exalt him past the flame of stars,     The limit and walled reach of the great world.     Therefore my breast made common to his mouth     Immortal savours, and the taste whereat     Twice their hard life strains out the coloured veins     And twice its brain confirms the narrow shell.     Also at night, unwinding cloth from cloth     As who unhusks an almond to the white     And pastures curiously the purer taste,     I bared the gracious limbs and the soft feet,     Unswaddled the weak hands, and in mid ash     Laid the sweet flesh of either feeble side,     More tender for impressure of some touch     Than wax to any pen; and lit around     Fire, and made crawl the white worm-shapen flame,     And leap in little angers spark by spark     At head at once and feet; and the faint hair     Hissed with rare sprinkles in the closer curl,     And like scaled oarage of a keen thin fish     In sea-water, so in pure fire his feet     Struck out, and the flame bit not in his flesh,     But like a kiss it curled his lip, and heat     Fluttered his eyelids; so each night I blew     The hot ash red to purge him to full god.     Ill is it when fear hungers in the soul     For painful food, and chokes thereon, being fed;     And ill slant eyes interpret the straight sun,     But in their scope its white is wried to black:     By the queen Metaneira mean I this;     For with sick wrath upon her lips, and heart,     Narrowing with fear the spleenful passages,     She thought to thread this webs fine ravel out,     Nor leave her shuttle split in combing it;     Therefore she stole on us, and with hard sight     Peered, and stooped close; then with pale open mouth     As the fire smote her in the eyes between     Cried, and the childs laugh, sharply shortening     As fire doth under rain, fell off; the flame     Writhed once all through and died, and in thick dark     Tears fell from mine on the childs weeping eyes,     Eyes dispossessed of strong inheritance     And mortal fallen anew. Who not the less     From bud of beard to pale-grey flower of hair     Shall wax vinewise to a lordly vine, whose grapes     Bleed the red heavy blood of swoln soft wine,     Subtle with sharp leaves intricacy, until     Full of white years and blossom of hoary days     I take him perfected; for whose one sake     I am thus gracious to the least who stands     Filleted with white wool and girt upon     As he whose prayer endures upon the lip     And falls not waste: wherefore let sacrifice     Burn and run red in all the wider ways;     Seeing I have sworn by the pale temples band     And poppied hair of gold Persephone     Sad-tressed and pleached low down about her brows,     And by the sorrow in her lips, and death     Her dumb and mournful-mouthd minister,     My word for you is eased of its harsh weight     And doubled with soft promise; and your king     Triptolemus, this Celeus dead and swathed     Purple and pale for golden burial,     Shall be your helper in my services,     Dividing earth and reaping fruits thereof     In fields where wait, well-girt, well-wreathen, all     The heavy-handed seasons all year through;     Saving the choice of warm spear-headed grain,     And stooping sharp to the slant-sided share     All beasts that furrow the remeasured land     With their bowed necks of burden equable.