Shall we find you bright

In the snow and wind.

[9]

The snow is melted,

The snow is gone,

And you are flown:

Like a bird out of our hand,

Like a light out of our heart,

You are gone.

As the wistful notes of the wood-wind gradually die away, there comes a sudden, shrill, swift piping.

Free and wild, like the wood-maidens of Artemis, is this last group of four—very straight with heads tossed back. They sing in rich, free, swift notes. They move swiftly before the curtain in contrast to the slow, important pace of the first two groups. Their hair is loose and rayed out like that of the sun-god. They are boyish in shape and gesture. They carry hyacinths in baskets, strapped like quivers to their backs. They reach to draw the flower sprays from the baskets, as the Huntress her arrows.

As they dart swiftly to and fro before the curtain, they are youth, they are spring—they are the Chelidonia, their song is the swallow-song of joy:

Between the hollows

Of the little hills

The spring spills blue—

Turquoise, sapphire, lapis-lazuli

 Prev. P 6/71 next