<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396727" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Daphne</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Musing on the fate of Daphne,<br>Many feelings urged my breast,<br>For the God so keen desiring,<br>And the Nymph so deep distrest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Never flashed thro' sylvan valley<br>Visions so divinely fair!<br>He with early ardour glowing,<br>She with rosy anguish rare.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Only still more sweet and lovely<br>For those terrors on her brows,<br>Those swift glances wild and brilliant,<br>Those delicious panting vows.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Timidly the timid shoulders<br>Shrinking from the fervid hand!<br>Dark the tide of hair back-flowing<br>From the blue-veined temples bland!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lovely, too, divine Apollo<br>In the speed of his pursuit;<br>With his eye an azure lustre,<br>And his voice a summer lute!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Looking like some burnished eagle<br>Hovering o'er a fluttered bird;<br>Not unseen of silver Naiad,<br>And of wistful Dryad heard!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Many a morn the naked beauty<br>Saw her bright reflection drown<br>In the flowing smooth-faced river,<br>While the god came sheening down.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Down from Pindus bright Peneus<br>Tells its muse-melodious source;<br>Sacred is its fountained birthplace,<br>And the Orient floods its course.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Many a morn the sunny darling<br>Saw the rising chariot-rays,<br>From the winding river-reaches,<br>Mellowing in amber haze.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thro' the flaming mountain gorges<br>Lo, the River leaps the plain;<br>Like a wild god-stridden courser,<br>Tossing high its foamy mane.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then he swims thro' laurelled sunlight,<br>Full of all sensations sweet,<br>Misty with his morning incense,<br>To the mirrored maiden's feet!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Wet and bright the dinting pebbles<br>Shine where oft she paused and stood;<br>All her dreamy warmth revolving,<br>While the chilly waters wooed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Like to rosy-born Aurora,<br>Glowing freshly into view,<br>When her doubtful foot she ventures<br>On the first cold morning blue.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">White as that Thessalian lily,<br>Fairest Tempe's fairest flower,<br>Lo, the tall Peneian virgin<br>Stands beneath her bathing bower.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There the laurell'd wreaths o'erarching<br>Crown'd the dainty shuddering maid;<br>There the dark prophetic laurel<br>Kiss'd her with its sister shade.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There the young green glistening leaflets<br>Hush'd with love their breezy peal;<br>There the little opening flowerets<br>Blush'd beneath her vermeil heel!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There among the conscious arbours<br>Sounds of soft tumultuous wail,<br>Mysteries of love, melodious,<br>Came upon the lyric gale!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Breathings of a deep enchantment,<br>Effluence of immortal grace,<br>Flitted round her faltering footstep,<br>Spread a balm about her face!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Witless of the enamour'd presence,<br>Like a dreamy lotus bud<br>From its drowsy stem down-drooping,<br>Gazed she in the glowing flood.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Softly sweet with fluttering presage,<br>Felt she that ethereal sense,<br>Drinking charms of love delirious,<br>Reaping bliss of love intense!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All the air was thrill'd with sunrise,<br>Birds made music of her name,<br>And the god-impregnate water<br>Claspt her image ere she came.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Richer for that glance unconscious!<br>Dearer for that soft dismay!<br>And the sudden self-possession!<br>And the smile as bright as day!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Plunging 'mid her scattered tresses,<br>With her blue invoking eyes;<br>See her like a star descending!<br>Like a rosebud see her rise!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Like a rosebud in the morning<br>Dashing off its jewell'd dews,<br>Ere unfolding all its fragrance<br>It is gathered by the muse!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Beauteous in the foamy laughter<br>Bubbling round her shrinking waist,<br>Lo! from locks and lips and eyelids<br>Rain the glittering pearl-drops chaste!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And about the maiden rapture<br>Still the ruddy ripples play'd,<br>Ebbing round in startled circlets<br>When her arms began to wade;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Flowing in like tides attracted<br>To the glowing crescent shine!<br>Clasping her ambrosial whiteness<br>Like an Autumn-tinted vine!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sinking low with love's emotion!<br>Levying with look and tone<br>All love's rosy arts to mimic<br>Cytherea's magic zone!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Trembling up with adoration<br>To the crimson daisy tip<br>Budding from the snowy bosom -<br>Fainter than the rose-red lip!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Rising in a storm of wavelets,<br>That for shelter, feigning fright,<br>Prest to those twin-heaving havens,<br>Harbour'd there beneath her light;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Gleaming in a whirl of eddies<br>Round her lucid throat and neck;<br>Eddying in a gleam of dimples<br>Up against her bloomy cheek;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Bribing all the breezy water<br>With rich warmth, the nymph to keep<br>In a self-imprison'd plaisance,<br>Tempting her from deep to deep.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Till at last delirious passion<br>Thrill'd the god to wild excess,<br>And the fervour of a moment<br>Made divinity confess;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And he stood in all his glory!<br>But so radiant, being near,<br>That her eyes were frozen on him<br>In a fascinated fear!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All with orient splendour shining,<br>All with roseate birth aglow,<br>Gleam'd the golden god before her,<br>With his golden crescent bow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Soon the dazzled light subsided,<br>And he seem'd a beauteous youth,<br>Form'd to gain the maiden's murmurs,<br>And to pledge the vows of truth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah! that thus he had continued!<br>O, that such for her had been!<br>Graceful with all godlike beauty,<br>But so humanly serene!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cheeks, and mouth, and mellow ringlets,<br>Bounteous as the mid-day beam;<br>Pleading looks and wistful tremour,<br>Tender as a maiden's dream!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Palms that like a bird's throbb'd bosom<br>Palpitate with eagerness,<br>Lips, the bridals of the roses,<br>Dewy sweet from the caress!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lips and limbs, and eyes and ringlets,<br>Swaying, praying to one prayer,<br>Like a lyre, swept by a spirit,<br>In the still, enraptur'd air.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Like a lyre in some far valley,<br>Uttering ravishments divine!<br>All its strings to viewless fingers<br>Yearning, modulations fine!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yearning with melodious fervour!<br>Like a beauteous maiden flower,<br>When the young beloved three paces<br>Hovers from the bridal bower.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Throbbing thro' the dawning stillness!<br>As a heart within a breast,<br>When the young beloved is stepping<br>Radiant to the nuptial nest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O for Daphne! gentle Daphne<br>Ever warmer by degrees<br>Whispers full of hopes and visions<br>Throng her ears like honey bees!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Never yet was lonely blossom<br>Woo'd with such delicious voice!<br>Never since hath mortal maiden<br>Dwelt on such celestial choice!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Love-suffused she quivers, falters -<br>Falters, sighs, but never speaks,<br>All her rosy blood up-gushing<br>Overflows her ripe young cheeks.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Blushing, sweet with virgin blushes,<br>All her loveliness a-flame,<br>Stands she in the orient waters,<br>Stricken o'er with speechless shame!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah! but lovelier, ever lovelier,<br>As more deep the colour glows,<br>And the honey-laden lily<br>Changes to the fragrant rose.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">While the god with meek embraces,<br>Whispering all his sacred charms,<br>Softly folds her, gently holds her,<br>In his white encircling arms!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But, O Dian! veil not wholly<br>Thy pale crescent from the morn!<br>Vanish not, O virgin goddess,<br>With that look of pallid scorn!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Still thy pure protecting influence<br>Shed from those fair watchful eyes! -<br>Lo! her angry orb has vanished,<br>And the bright sun thrones the skies!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Voicelessly the forest Virgin<br>Vanished! but one look she gave -<br>Keen as Niobean arrow<br>Thro' the maiden's heart it drave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus toward that throning bosom<br>Where all earth is warmed,-each spot<br>Nourished with autumnal blessings -<br>Icy chill was Daphne caught.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Icy chill! but swift revulsion<br>All her gentler self renewed,<br>Even as icy Winter quickens<br>With bud-opening warmth imbued.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Even as a torpid brooklet,<br>That to the night-gleaming moon<br>Flashed in turn the frozen glances,<br>Melts upon the breast of noon.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But no more-O never, never,<br>Turns she to that bosom bright,<br>Swiftly all her senses counsel,<br>All her nerves are strung to flight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O'er the brows of radiant Pindus<br>Rolls a shadow dark and cold,<br>And a sound of lamentation<br>Issues from its mournful fold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Voice of the far-sighted Muses!<br>Cry of keen foreboding song!<br>Every cleft of startled Tempe<br>Tingles with it sharp and long.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Over bourn and bosk and dingle,<br>Over rivers, over rills,<br>Runs the sad subservient Echo<br>Toward the dim blue distant hills!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And another and another!<br>'Tis a cry more wild than all;<br>And the hills with muffled voices<br>Answer 'Daphne!' to the call.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And another and another!<br>'Tis a cry so wildly sweet,<br>That her charmed heart turns rebel<br>To the instinct of her feet;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And she pauses for an instant;<br>But his arms have scarcely slid<br>Round her waist in cestian girdles,<br>And his low voluptuous lid</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lifted pleading, and the honey<br>Of his mouth for hers athirst,<br>Ruby glistening, raised for moisture -<br>Like a bud that waits to burst</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In the sweet espousing showers -<br>And his tongue has scarce begun<br>With its inarticulate burthen,<br>And the clouds scarce show the sun</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As it pierces thro' a crevice<br>Of the mass that closed it o'er,<br>When again the horror flashes -<br>And she turns to flight once more!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And again o'er radiant Pindus<br>Rolls the shadow dark and cold,<br>And the sound of lamentation<br>Issues from its sable fold!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And again the light winds chide her<br>As she darts from his embrace -<br>And again the far-voiced echoes<br>Speak their tidings of the chase.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Loudly now as swiftly, swiftly,<br>O'er the glimmering sands she speeds;<br>Wildly now as in the furzes<br>From the piercing spikes she bleeds.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Deeply and with direful anguish,<br>As above each crimson drop<br>Passion checks the god Apollo,<br>And love bids him weep and stop. -</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He above each drop of crimson<br>Shadowing-like the laurel leaf<br>That above himself will shadow -<br>Sheds a fadeless look of grief.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then with love's remorseful discord,<br>With its own desire at war,<br>Sighing turns, while dimly fleeting<br>Daphne flies the chase afar.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But all nature is against her!<br>Pan, with all his sylvan troop,<br>Thro' the vista'd woodland valleys<br>Blocks her course with cry and whoop!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In the twilights of the thickets<br>Trees bend down their gnarled boughs,<br>Wild green leaves and low curved branches<br>Hold her hair and beat her brows.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Many a brake of brushwood covert,<br>Where cold darkness slumbers mute,<br>Slips a shrub to thwart her passage,<br>Slides a hand to clutch her foot.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Glens and glades of lushest verdure<br>Toil her in their tawny mesh,<br>Wilder-woofed ways and alleys<br>Lock her struggling limbs in leash.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Feathery grasses, flowery mosses,<br>Knot themselves to make her trip;<br>Sprays and stubborn sprigs outstretching<br>Put a bridle on her lip;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Many a winding lane betrays her,<br>Many a sudden bosky shoot,<br>And her knee makes many a stumble<br>O'er some hidden damp old root,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whose quaint face peers green and dusky<br>'Mongst the matted growth of plants,<br>While she rises wild and weltering,<br>Speeding on with many pants.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tangles of the wild red strawberry<br>Spread their freckled trammels frail;<br>In the pathway creeping brambles<br>Catch her in their thorny trail.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All the widely sweeping greensward<br>Shifts and swims from knoll to knoll;<br>Grey rough-fingered oak and elm wood<br>Push her by from bole to bole.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Groves of lemon, groves of citron,<br>Tall high-foliaged plane and palm,<br>Bloomy myrtle, light-blue olive,<br>Wave her back with gusts of balm.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Languid jasmine, scrambling briony,<br>Walls of close-festooning braid,<br>Fling themselves about her, mingling<br>With her wafted looks, waylaid.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Twisting bindweed, honey'd woodbine,<br>Cling to her, while, red and blue,<br>On her rounded form ripe berries<br>Dash and die in gory dew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Running ivies dark and lingering<br>Round her light limbs drag and twine;<br>Round her waist with languorous tendrils<br>Reels and wreathes the juicy vine;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Reining in the flying creature<br>With its arms about her mouth;<br>Bursting all its mellowing bunches<br>To seduce her husky drouth;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Crowning her with amorous clusters;<br>Pouring down her sloping back<br>Fresh-born wines in glittering rillets,<br>Following her in crimson track.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Buried, drenched in dewy foliage,<br>Thus she glimmers from the dawn,<br>Watched by every forest creature,<br>Fleet-foot Oread, frolic Faun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Silver-sandalled Arethusa<br>Not more swiftly fled the sands,<br>Fled the plains and fled the sunlights,<br>Fled the murmuring ocean strands.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O, that now the earth would open!<br>O, that now the shades would hide!<br>O, that now the gods would shelter!<br>Caverns lead and seas divide!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Not more faint soft-lowing Io<br>Panted in those starry eyes,<br>When the sleepless midnight meadows<br>Piteously implored the skies!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Still her breathless flight she urges<br>By the sanctuary stream,<br>And the god with golden swiftness<br>Follows like an eastern beam.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her the close bewildering greenery<br>Darkens with its duskiest green, -<br>Him each little leaflet welcomes,<br>Flushing with an orient sheen.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus he nears, and now all Tempe<br>Rings with his melodious cry,<br>Avenues and blue expanses<br>Beam in his large lustrous eye!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All the branches start to music!<br>As if from a secret spring<br>Thousands of sweet bills are bubbling<br>In the nest and on the wing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Gleams and shines the glassy river<br>And rich valleys every one;<br>But of all the throbbing beauty<br>Brightest! singled by the sun!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ivy round her glimmering ancle,<br>Vine about her glowing brow,<br>Never sure was bride so beauteous,<br>Daphne, chosen nymph, as thou!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus he nears! and now she feels him<br>Breathing hot on every limb;<br>And he hears her own quick pantings -<br>Ah! that they might be for him.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O, that like the flower he tramples,<br>Bending from his golden tread,<br>Full of fair celestial ardours,<br>She would bow her bridal head.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O, that like the flower she presses,<br>Nodding from her lily touch,<br>Light as in the harmless breezes,<br>She would know the god for such!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">See! the golden arms are round her -<br>To the air she grasps and clings!<br>See! his glowing arms have wound her -<br>To the sky she shrieks and springs!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">See! the flushing chace of Tempe<br>Trembles with Olympian air -<br>See! green sprigs and buds are shooting<br>From those white raised arms of prayer!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In the earth her feet are rooting! -<br>Breasts and limbs and lifted eyes,<br>Hair and lips and stretching fingers,<br>Fade away-and fadeless rise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the god whose fervent rapture<br>Clasps her finds his close embrace<br>Full of palpitating branches,<br>And new leaves that bud apace,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Bound his wonder-stricken forehead; -<br>While in ebbing measures slow<br>Sounds of softly dying pulses<br>Pause and quiver, pause and go;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Go, and come again, and flutter<br>On the verge of life,-then flee!<br>All the white ambrosial beauty<br>Is a lustrous Laurel Tree!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Still with the great panting love-chase<br>All its running sap is warmed; -<br>But from head to foot the virgin<br>Is transfigured and transformed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Changed!-yet the green Dryad nature<br>Is instinct with human ties,<br>And above its anguish'd lover<br>Breathes pathetic sympathies;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sympathies of love and sorrow;<br>Joy in her divine escape;<br>Breathing through her bursting foliage<br>Comfort to his bending shape.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Vainly now the floating Naiads<br>Seek to pierce the laurel maze,<br>Nought but laurel meets their glances,<br>Laurel glistens as they gaze.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nought but bright prophetic laurel!<br>Laurel over eyes and brows,<br>Over limbs and over bosom,<br>Laurel leaves and laurel boughs!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And in vain the listening Dryad<br>Shells her hand against her ear! -<br>All is silence-save the echo<br>Travelling in the distance drear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=George+Meredith">George Meredith</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396727" data-title="Daphne de George Meredith" data-description="Musing on the fate of Daphne, Many feelings urged my breast, For the God so keen desiring, And the Nymph so deep distrest. Never flashed thro' sylvan valley Visions so divinely fair! He with early ardour glowing, She with rosy anguish rare. Only..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black