FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77  
78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   >>   >|  
of horrible faces. One starts, with a forehead wrinkled and livid, Aghast at the lightnings sudden and vivid; One telleth, with curses, the gold that they drew there (Ah! cross your breast humbly) from him whom they slew there: The stranger, who came from the loved, the romantic Island that sleeps on the moaning Atlantic, Leaving behind him a patient home, yearning For the steps in the distance--never returning; Who was left in the forest, shrunken and starkly, Burnt by his slayers (so men have said, darkly), With the half-crazy sheep-dog, who cowered beside there, And yelled at the silence, and marvelled, and died there. Yea, cross your breast humbly and hold your breath tightly, Or fly for your life from those shadows unsightly, From the set staring features (cold, and so young, too), And the death on the lips that a mother hath clung to. I tell you--that bushman is braver than most men Who even in daylight doth go through the Ghost Glen, Although in that hollow, unholy and lonely, He sees the dank sawpits and bloody logs only. Daphne Daphne! Ladon's daughter, Daphne! Set thyself in silver light, Take thy thoughts of fairest texture, weave them into words of white-- Weave the rhyme of rose-lipped Daphne, nymph of wooded stream and shade, Flying love of bright Apollo,--fleeting type of faultless maid! She, when followed from the forelands by the lord of lyre and lute, Sped towards far-singing waters, past deep gardens flushed with fruit; Took the path against Peneus, panted by its yellow banks; Turned, and looked, and flew the faster through grey-tufted thicket ranks; Flashed amongst high flowered sedges: leaped across the brook, and ran Down to where the fourfold shadows of a nether glade began; There she dropped, like falling Hesper, heavy hair of radiant head Hiding all the young abundance of her beauty's white and red. Came the yellow-tressed Far-darter--came the god whose feet are fire, On his lips the name of Daphne, in his eyes a great desire; Fond, full lips of lord and lover, sad because of suit denied; Clear, grey eyes made keen by passion, panting, pained, unsatisfied. Here he turned, and there he halted, now he paused, and now he flew, Swifter than his sister's arrows, through soft dells of dreamy dew. Vext with gleams of Ladon's daughter, dashed along the son
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77  
78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Daphne
 

yellow

 

shadows

 

daughter

 

breast

 
humbly
 
faster
 

Turned

 
looked
 

leaped


sedges

 

flowered

 
thicket
 

Flashed

 
tufted
 

gardens

 
Flying
 
forelands
 

fleeting

 

Apollo


faultless

 

panted

 

Peneus

 

flushed

 

singing

 

waters

 

bright

 

Hiding

 

passion

 

panting


unsatisfied

 
pained
 

denied

 

turned

 

gleams

 
dashed
 

dreamy

 
paused
 

halted

 
Swifter

sister
 

arrows

 
desire
 
Hesper
 

radiant

 

stream

 
falling
 

nether

 
dropped
 

abundance