Alas! Alas!
My heart sinks down; I dread she may be lost;--
Eunoe, climb the hill, search that ravine,
Whose close, dark sides may hide her from our view:--
Oh, dearest, haste! Is that her snow-white robe?
_Eun._ No;--'tis a faun
[Footnote: MS. _fawn._]
beside its sleeping Mother,
Browsing the grass;--what will thy Mother say,
Dear Proserpine, what will bright Ceres feel,
If her return be welcomed not by thee?
_Ino._ These are wild thoughts,--& we are wrong to fear
That any ill can touch the child of heaven;
She is not lost,--trust me, she has but strayed
Up some steep mountain path, or in yon dell,
Or to the rock where yellow wall-flowers grow,
Scaling with venturous step the narrow path
Which the goats fear to tread;--she will return
And mock our fears.
_Eun._ The sun now dips his beams
In the bright sea; Ceres descends at eve
From Jove's high conclave; if her much-loved child
Should meet her not in yonder golden field,
Where to the evening wind the ripe grain waves
Its yellow head, how will her heart misgive. [13]
Let us adjure the Naiad of yon brook[,]
She may perchance have seen our Proserpine,
And tell us to what distant field she's strayed:--
Wait thou, dear Ino, here, while I repair
To the tree-shaded source of her swift stream.
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