Voice of the far-sighted Muses!
Cry of keen foreboding song!
Every cleft of startled Tempe
Tingles with it sharp and long.
Over bourn and bosk and dingle,
Over rivers, over rills,
Runs the sad subservient Echo
Toward the dim blue distant hills!
And another and another!
’Tis a cry more wild than all;
And the hills with muffled voices
Answer ‘Daphne!’ to the call.
And another and another!
’Tis a cry so wildly sweet,
That her charmed heart turns rebel
To the instinct of her feet;
And she pauses for an instant;
But his arms have scarcely slid
Round her waist in cestian girdles,
And his low voluptuous lid
Lifted pleading, and the honey
Of his mouth for hers athirst,
Ruby glistening, raised for moisture—
Like a bud that waits to burst
In the sweet espousing showers—
And his tongue has scarce begun
With its inarticulate burthen,
And the clouds scarce show the sun
As it pierces thro’ a crevice
Of the mass that closed it o’er,
When again the horror flashes—
And she turns to flight once more!
And again o’er radiant Pindus
Rolls the shadow dark and cold,
And the sound of lamentation
Issues from its sable fold!
And again the light winds chide her
As she darts from his embrace—
And again the far-voiced echoes
Speak their tidings of the chase.