_Who gave us flowers?_
_Heaven? The white God?_
Nonsense!
Up out of hell,
From Hades;
Infernal Dis!
_Jesus the god of flowers----?_
Not he.
_Or sun-bright Apollo, him so musical?_
Him neither.
_Who then?_
_Say who._
Say it--and it is Pluto,
Dis,
The dark one,
Proserpine’s master.
_Who contradicts----?_
When she broke forth from below,
Flowers came, hell-hounds on her heels.
Dis, the dark, the jealous god, the husband,
Flower-sumptuous-blooded.
_Go then_, he said.
And in Sicily, on the meadows of Enna,
She thought she had left him;
But opened around her purple anemones,
Caverns,
Little hells of colour, caves of darkness,
Hell, risen in pursuit of her; royal, sumptuous
Pit-falls.
All at her feet
Hell opening;
At her white ankles
Hell rearing its husband-splendid, serpent heads,
Hell-purple, to get at her--
_Why did he let her go?_
So he could track her down again, white victim.
Ah mastery!
Hell’s husband-blossoms
Out on earth again.
Look out, Persephone!
You, Madame Ceres, mind yourself, the enemy is upon you.
About your feet spontaneous aconite,
Hell-glamorous, and purple husband-tyranny
Enveloping your late-enfranchised plains.
You thought your daughter had escaped?
No more stockings to darn for the flower-roots, down in hell?
But ah my dear!
Aha, the stripe-cheeked whelps, whippet-slim crocuses,
_At ’em, boys, at ’em!_
_Ho golden-spaniel, sweet alert narcissus,_
_Smell ’em, smell ’em out!_
Those two enfranchised women.
Somebody is coming!
_Oho there!_
Dark blue anemones!
Hell is up!
Hell on earth, and Dis within the depths!
_Run, Persephone, he is after you already._
_Why did he let her go?_
To track her down;
All the sport of summer and spring, and flowers
snapping at her ankles and catching her by the hair!
Poor Persephone and her rights for women.
_Husband-snared hell-queen,_
_It is spring._
It is spring,
And pomp of husband-strategy on earth.
_Ceres, kiss your girl, you think you’ve got her back._
_The bit of husband-tilth she is,_
_Persephone!_
Poor mothers-in-law!
They are always sold.
It is spring.
_Taormina._