LITMIR.BIZ

      ACT I

      Enter Chorus of Oceanides, with baskets.

      OCEANIDES.

      Gay and lovely is earth, man's decorate dwelling;

       With fresh beauty ever varying hour to hour.

       As now bathed in azure joy she awakeneth

       With bright morn to the sun's life-giving effluence,

       Or sunk into solemn darkness aneath the stars 60

       In mysterious awe slumbereth out the night,

       Then from darkness again plunging again to day;

       Like dolphins in a swift herd that accompany

       Poseidon's chariot when he rebukes the waves.

       But no country to me 'neath the enarching air

       Is fair as Sicily's flowery fruitful isle:

       Always lovely, whether winter adorn the hills

       With his silvery snow, or generous summer

       Outpour her heavy gold on the river-valleys.

       Her rare beauty giveth gaiety unto man, 70

       A delite dear to immortals.

      2

      And one season of all chiefly deliteth us,

       When fair Spring is afield. O happy is the Spring!

       Now birds early arouse their pretty minstreling;

       Now down its rocky hill murmureth ev'ry rill;

       Now all bursteth anew, wantoning in the dew

       Their bells of bonny blue, their chalices honey'd.

       Unkind frost is away; now sunny is the day;

       Now man thinketh aright, Life it is all delite.

       Now maids playfully dance o'er enamel'd meadows, 80

       And with goldy blossom deck forehead and bosom;

       While old Pan rollicketh thro' the budding shadows,

       Voicing his merry reed, laughing aloud to lead

       The echoes madly rejoicing.

      {54}

      3

      We be Oceanids, Persephone's lovers,

       Who all came hurrying joyfully from the sea

       Ere daybreak to obey her belovëd summons.

       At her fancy to pluck these violets, lilies,

       Windflow'rs and daffodils, all for a festival

       Whereat shé will adorn Zeuses honour'd banner. 90

       And with Persephone there cometh Artemis

       And grave Pallas … Hilloo! Already they approach!

       Haste, haste! Stoop to gather! Seem busy ev'ryone!

       Crowd all your wicker arcs with the meadow-lilies;

       Lest our disreverenc'd deity should rebuke

       The divine children of Ocean.

      [Enter Athena, Persephone, and Artemis. Persephone has a basket half fill'd with gather'd flowers.]

      ATHENA.

      These then are Enna's flowery fields, and here

       In midmost isle the garden of thy choice?

      PERSEPHONE.

      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{55}

       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?