Persephone

 She walked in fields picking flowers

She was picked by heavenly powers

And by the plains down in hell below

Where flowers wilt and will not grow

But love there was too strong to show

That of Hades for Persephone

That he stole her and her beauty

Down to chasms and caverns he took her

Her mother walking up above

Called where is the heart string of my love

Where is my one and only daughter

I left her only a while by the water

Demeter the Goddess of the harvest

Became so fraught and restless

She sought answers from Zeus, her brother

But he told her not to bother

"She will return, she is young and free

Free to wander and love, be who she will be

But Demeter was not to be calmed

By such words when she feared her harmed

"Find her now or I shall strike the world a mighty blow!

Put down my plough, neither shall I gather nor sow"

So under pressure Zeus searched high and low

And found her locked in Hades below

But Hades would not fully relinquish his prize

Not one so beautiful, it would be too great a sacrifice

So, though he knew he was commanded by his brother

He gave food to Persephone so as to trick her mother

She was starving in the underground prison

And so she ate the food of poison

She ate six pomegranate seeds 

And for each seed came a punishment for her greed

For each seed represented a month not free on Earth

In the arms of her mother from whose flower she was given birth

Instead she had to return to hell below

And live with Hades her captor in tow

For these dark months her mother would not work

Demeter went into mourning, crops died the harvesters shirked

Nothing went on growing above ground on Earth

While Hades imprisoned her daughter denying her worth

When finally the months of waiting were over

And Winter had followed Autumn, Persephone broke cover

And unbound she walked again through spring meadows

Her Mother overjoyed began to emerge from the shadows

But each year ever since, Demeter ceases to reap or sow

As her daughter in the ball and chain goes down to hell below

The darkness must answer light, the freedom by degrees

Is qualified by the quality and value we put on being free