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.

     Loudly now as swiftly, swiftly,
     O’er the glimmering sands she speeds;
     Wildly now as in the furzes
     From the piercing spikes she bleeds.

     Deeply and with direful anguish,
     As above each crimson drop
     Passion checks the god Apollo,
     And love bids him weep and stop. —

     He above each drop of crimson
     Shadowing—­like the laurel leaf
     That above himself will shadow —
     Sheds a fadeless look of grief.

     Then with love’s remorseful discord,
     With its own desire at war,
     Sighing turns, while dimly fleeting
     Daphne flies the chase afar.

     But all nature is against her! 
     Pan, with all his sylvan troop,
     Thro’ the vista’d woodland valleys
     Blocks her course with cry and whoop!

     In the twilights of the thickets
     Trees bend down their gnarled boughs,
     Wild green leaves and low curved branches
     Hold her hair and beat her brows.

     Many a brake of brushwood covert,
     Where cold darkness slumbers mute,
     Slips a shrub to thwart her passage,
     Slides a hand to clutch her foot.

     Glens and glades of lushest verdure
     Toil her in their tawny mesh,
     Wilder-woofed ways and alleys
     Lock her struggling limbs in leash.

     Feathery grasses, flowery mosses,
     Knot themselves to make her trip;
     Sprays and stubborn sprigs outstretching
     Put a bridle on her lip;

     Many a winding lane betrays her,
     Many a sudden bosky shoot,
     And her knee makes many a stumble
     O’er some hidden damp old root,

     Whose quaint face peers green and dusky
     ’Mongst the matted growth of plants,
     While she rises wild and weltering,
     Speeding on with many pants.