The Plucking of Proserpina

I must be whisked away, while picking maidenly Sicily

From those billowing felts of petals, red and rosy

Plucked from her pistils, mother’s bosom of dreams

And in the snatching, Ceres’ tress of green,

Had been scalped with Pluto’s flaming teem;

But he can do no wrong and it is not by nefarious means;

For He only loves me

And Yet he plucks me;

So does he love me,

Or does he love me not;

And from the chariot, I must watch her burn,

Her blessèd womb, where all blessings churn,

As he took me from Sicily, into a sea, deep dark, and starry

Clutching my dainty side vigorously, clenching at every pry

His avaricious grasp, could I slither nor wean

This wistful king, who roll and band reproachful skein

And with my life and worth he has wrung

In a spindle, his, than should Clotho spun;

He loves me, yet he does not know love,

And he plucks me, from what I had loved;

His wrathful fires, as I slipping escape

His immature pincers, course my penducle to the nape

And dash his gaze, the dominion like Pluto, fury awake,

I rush, down the volcanic halls, and the soul boiling lake

Consumed with a gloom look, in his castle of fire,

And soddened loveless, in the sunken empire,

How far from blood his straining line?

How distant his stars for them to align?

And as I haste ever higher, for the last jade rundle,

I cannot but pity, the flowers he would never handle;

But love cannot be blossomed from a stone tower,

And a flower plucked will only be a dying flower