h fearless stamp,
Of this our reckless, rapturous dance,
In holy rejoicing!
Hand in hand, thrice beatified,
Lo we thread the rhythmic, fanciful,
Mystical mazes!

And the dance begins. Youths and maidens advance to meet each other with
graceful movements. Every step must be a thing of beauty, every bend and
rising, while the double flutes play faster and faster, and the measured
rhythm becomes a wild whirl. They all know the dance, and the music is a
guide to the feeling to be expressed; the dancing must be suited to it.
Every gesture is a stroke of color which may beautify or mar the picture.
Body and spirit are in perfect harmony, combining to represent the
feelings that stir the soul. It is a work of art, the art of the arms and
feet. Even when passion is at the highest the guiding law is observed.
Nay, when the dancers fly wildly apart, they, not merely come together
again with unerring certainty, but form in new combination another
delightful and perfectly harmonious picture.

"Seek and find" this dance might be called, for the first idea is to
represent the wandering of Demeter in search of her daughter Persephone,
whom Pluto has carried off to the nether world, till she finds her and
clasps her in her motherly arms once more. Thus does the earth bewail the
reaped fruit of the field, which is buried in the ground in the winter
sowing, to rise again in the spring; thus does a faithful heart pine
during absence till it is reunited to the beloved one; thus do we mourn
our dead till our soul is assured of their resurrection: and this belief
is the end and clew to the mystery.

All this grief and search, this longing and crying for the absent, this
final restoration and the bliss of new possession, is set forth by the
youths and damsels-now in slow and now in vehement action, but always
with infinite grace.

Melissa threw her whole soul into the dance while Demeter was seeking the
lost Persephone, her thoughts were with her brothers; and she laughed as
heartily as any one at the jests with which Iambe cheered the stricken
mother. And when the joy of meeting was to find expression, she need not
think of anything but the fact that the youth who held out his hand to
her loved her and cared for her. In this, for the moment, lay the end of
all her longing and seeking, the fulfillment of every wish; and as the
chorus shouted, "Iakchos!" again and again, her soul seemed to have