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Sunday, November 4, 2018

Demeter in November / Mary Josephine Benson


Demeter in November

Her fingers pluck at the window-ledge —
               Demeter’s, come like a graveless ghost —
They pry and pluck like a rifting wedge
And she calls with the voice of the wind in sedge,
               “Persephone — lost — lost!”

The Mother of Earth grew crazed o’ernight —
               Demeter roams November-tossed —
And her hair, erst twined with wheat-ears bright
And poppies, is rent as she seeks in fright
               Persephone, her lost.

The flowers of all the earth are dead,
               Transfixed and grey and rimed with frost,
And its heavy corn is harvested —
Demeter shivers and shrieks in dread,
               “Persephone is lost!”

Has the scythe then circled thy fairest child,
               Demeter, and is thy questing crost,
That thou go’st with mien so changed and wild?
Is thy daughter by Death or Life beguiled,
               Persephone, thy lost?

In at each curtain she peers and raves,
               Now here must pause, now hence must post,
Then speeds to the ocean to scan the waves,
Or hastes to her furrows that gloom like graves —
               Persephone is lost.

Athwart the rain and the riven cloud
               Demeter, gone like a driven ghost,
At window of cot or castle proud
Is wailing low and is calling loud —
               “Persephone — lost — lost!”

~~
Mary Josephine Benson (1887-1965)
from My Pocket Beryl, 1921

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Mary Josephine Benson biography

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