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 :::PERSEPHONE T last! After the dumb sick longing;— At last! Filling the ancient urns With odours and all the air With a shudder, a laughter, a cry— On a wind blown over leagues of tremulous grass, Leagues of transparent grass, Leagues of a million of grass-blades moist with rain, Moist with warm rain and fresh from the brown earth—

At last! The ravished one, the birth-pale one. The holy one, the wanton one. The Spring returns!

O, youth of the world! O, martyred innocents! Murdered on all these battlefields of ours — Fields that are wet with something else than rain — Is it your blood that lends unto our flowers This quivering beauty that redeemeth pain? For at last! The ravished one, the birth-pale one. The holy one, the wanton one. The Spring returns!