DAPHNE by FRANCIS THOMPSON

THE river-god's daughter, -- the sun-god sought her,
Sleeping with never a zephyr by her.
Under the noon he made his prey sure,
Woofed in weeds of a woven azure,
As down he shot in a whistle of fire.

Slid off, fair daughter! her vesturing water;
Like a cloud from the scourge of the winds fled she:
With the breath in her hair of the keen Apollo,
And feet less fleet than the feet that follow,
She throes in his arms to a laurel-tree.

Risen out of birth's waters the soul distraught errs,
Nor whom nor whither she flieth knows she:
With the breath in her hair of the keen Apollo,
And fleet the beat of the feet that follow,
She throes in his arms to a poet, woe's me!

You plucked the boughed verse the poet bears --
It shudders and bleeds as it snaps from the tree.
A love-banning love, did the god but know it,
Which barks the man about with the poet,
And muffles his heart of mortality!

Yet I translate -- ward of song's gate! --
Perchance all ill this mystery.
We both are struck with the self-same quarrel;
We grasp the maiden, and clasp the laurel --
Do we weep or we laugh more, @3Phoebe mi@1?

'His own green lays, unwithering bays,
Gird Keats' unwithering brow,' say ye?
O fools, that is only the empty crown!
The sacred head has laid it down
With Hob, Dick, Marian, and Margery.

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