"What ails her that she comes not home?
"Demeter seeks her far and wide,
"And gloomy-browed doth ceaseless roam
"From many a morn till eventide.
"'My life, immortal though it be.
"Is nought,' she cries, 'for want of thee,
"Persephone—Persephone!'"
So, to the great Earth Mother came the pangs that have drawn tears of blood from many a mortal mother's heart for a child borne off to the Shades.
"'My life is nought for want of thee,—
"Persephone! Persephone!'" …
The cry is borne down through the ages, to echo and reecho so long as mothers love and Death is still unchained.
Over land and sea, from where Dawn, the rosy-fingered, rises in the East, to where Apollo cools the fiery wheels of his chariot in the waters of far western seas, the goddess sought her daughter. With a black robe over her head and carrying a flaming torch in either hand, for nine dreary days she sought her loved one. And yet, for nine more weary days and nine sleepless nights the goddess, racked by human sorrow, sat in hopeless misery. The hot sun beat upon her by day. By night the silver rays from Diana's car smote her more gently, and the dew drenched her hair and her black garments and mingled with the saltness of her bitter tears. At the grey dawning of the tenth day her elder daughter, Hecate, stood beside her. Queen of ghosts and shades was she, and to her all dark places of the earth were known.
"Let us go to the Sun God," said Hecate. "Surely
