_ Where is my daughter? have I aught to dread?
Where does she stray? Ino, you answer not;--
She was aye wont to meet me in yon field,--
Your looks bode ill;--I fear my child is lost.
_Ino._ Eunoe now seeks her track among the woods;
Fear not, great Ceres, she has only strayed.
_Cer._ Alas! My boding heart,--I dread the worst.
Oh, careless nymphs! oh, heedless Proserpine!
And did you leave her wandering by herself?
She is immortal,--yet unusual fear
Runs through my veins. Let all the woods be sought,
Let every dryad, every gamesome faun
[Footnote: MS. _fawn._]
Tell where they last beheld her snowy feet
Tread the soft, mossy paths of the wild wood.
But that I see the base of Etna firm
I well might fear that she had fallen a prey
To Earth-born Typheus, who might have arisen [15]
And seized her as the fairest child of heaven,
That in his dreary caverns she lies bound;
It is not so: all is as safe and calm
As when I left my child. Oh, fatal day!
Eunoe does not return: in vain she seeks
Through the black woods and down the darksome glades,
And night is hiding all things from our view.
I will away, and on the highest top
Of snowy Etna, kindle two clear flames.
Night shall not hide her from my anxious search,
No moment will I rest, or sleep, or pause
Till she returns, until I clasp again
My only loved one, my lost Proserpine.
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