The mysteries remain, I keep the same cycle of seed—time and of sun and rain; Demeter in the grass,

Over and back, the long waves crawl and track the sand with foam; night darkens, and the sea takes on that desperate tone

So you have swept me back, I who could have walked with the l… above the earth, I who could have slept among the l… at last;

Can we believe—by an effort comfort our hearts: it is not waste all this, not placed here in disgust, street after street,

O be swift— we have always known you wanted us… We fled inland with our flocks. we pastured them in hollows, cut off from the wind

Will you glimmer on the sea? Will you fling your spear—head On the shore? What note shall we pitch? We have a song,

Bear me to Dictaeus, and to the steep slopes; to the river Erymanthus. I choose spray of dittany, cyperum, frail of flower,

Whirl up, sea— whirl your pointed pines, splash your great pines on our rocks, hurl your green over us,

Where the slow river meets the tide, a red swan lifts red wings and darker beak, and underneath the purple down

Each of us like you has died once, has passed through drift of wood—l… cracked and bent and tortured and unbent

Silver dust lifted from the earth, higher than my arms reach, you have mounted. O silver,