Proserpine "forgets the earth her mother" and goes to her "bloomless" garden: "And spring and seed and swallow Take wing for her and follow Where summer song rings hollow And flowers are put to scorn.

"Slowly that bloomless favour grew, Before his stern protectors knew The secret which arous'd disdain.

She had been betrayed by love itself; and what cared she now for her future, her embittered, bloomless, scentless life, when he had deceived her he, the only one whom she had loved?

The bloomless days are dead, and frozen fear No more for many moons shall vex the earth, Dreaming of summer and fruit laden mirth.

In all the matted hollows, and speared through With thousand serpent-spotted blades up-sprung, Yet bloomless, of the slender adder-tongue.