As I heard thee call, my mother,
So his call I must obey;
Even here shall come his mandate,
And I may not answer nay.
Ah! when harvest fruits are garnered,
Mourn thy child Persephoné.’
Jessie M. E. Saxby.
[1] Persephoné, according to the Greek mythology, was the daughter of Zeus (the Heavens) and Demeter (the Earth). Various legends are related of her, one of the later and most beautiful being that, when young, she was carried off by Pluto (ruler of the spirits of the dead), and by him made Queen of Hadës (the nether world). Her mother, in agony at her loss, searched for her all over the earth with torches, until at last she discovered her abode. The gods, moved by the mother’s distress, sent a messenger to bring Persephoné back, and Pluto consented to let her go on condition that she returned and spent a portion of every year with him. From this, Persephoné became among the ancients the symbol of Spring, her disappearance to the lower world coinciding with winter, and her reappearance in the upper world bringing back vegetable life and beauty.
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