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 of Jove,
Fast upon flower-trammelled Daphne
fleeting on from grove to grove;
Flights of seawind hard behind him, breaths of bleak and whistling straits;
Drifts of driving cloud above him, like a troop of
fierce-eyed fates!
So he reached the water-shallows; then he stayed his steps, and heard
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Daphne drop upon the grasses, fluttering like a wounded bird.
Was there help for Ladon's daughter? Saturn's son is high and just:
Did he come between her beauty and the
fierce Far-darter's lust?
As she lay, the
helplessmaiden, caught and bound in fast eclipse,
Did the lips of god drain pleasure from her sweet and swooning lips?
Now that these and all Love's treasures blushed, before the spoiler, bare,
Was the wrong that shall be
nameless done, and seen, and suffered there?
No! for Zeus is King and Father. Weary nymph and fiery god,
Bend the knee alike before him - he is kind, and he is lord!
Therefore sing how clear-browed Pallas - Pallas, friend of prayerful maid,
Lifted dazzling Daphne
lightly, bore her down the
breathless glade,
Did the thing that Zeus commanded: so it came to pass that he
Who had chased a white-armed
virgin, caught at her, and clasped a tree.
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THE WARRIGAL
Note:The Wild Dog
THROUGH forest boles the storm-wind rolls,
Vext of the sea-driv'n rain,
And, up in the clift, through many a rift,
The voices of
torrents complain.
The sad marsh-fowl and the
lonely owl
Are heard in the fog-wreaths grey,
When the warrigal wakes, and listens, and takes
To the woods that shelter the prey.
In the gully-deeps the blind creek sleeps,
And the silver, showery moon
Glides over the hills, and floats, and fills,
And dreams in the dark lagoon;
While halting hard by the station yard,
Aghast at the hut-flame nigh,
The Warrigal yells - and the flats and fells
Are loud with his
dismal cry.
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On the topmost peak of mountains bleak,
The south wind sobs, and strays
Through moaning pine, and turpentine,
And the rippling runnel ways;
And strong streams flow, and great mists go,
Where the Warrigal starts to hear
The watch-dog's bark break sharp in the dark,
And flees like a
phantom of Fear!
The swift rains beat, and the
thunders fleet
On the wings of the fiery gale,
And down in the glen of pool and fen,
The wild gums
whistle and wail,
As over the plains, and past the chains
Of waterholes glimmering deep,
The Warrigal flies from the Shepherd's cries,
And the clamour of dogs and sheep.
The Warrigal's lair is pent in bare
Black rocks at the gorge's mouth:
It is set in ways where Summer strays
With the sprites of flame and drouth;
But when the heights are touched with lights
Of hoar-frost, sleet, and shine,
His bed is made of the dead grass-blade
And the leaves of the windy pine.
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He roves through the lands of
sultry sands,
He hunts in the iron range,
Untamed as surge of the far sea verge,
And
fierce and
fickle and strange.
The white man's track and the haunts of the black
He shuns, and shudders to see;
For his joy he tastes in
lonely wastes
Where his mates are
torrent and tree.
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EUROCLYDON
ON the storm-cloven Cape
The bitter waves roll
With the bergs of the Pole,
And the darks and the damps of the Northern Sea:
For the storm-cloven Cape
Is an alien Shape
With a
fearful face; and it moans, and it stands
Outside all lands
Everlastingly!
When the fruits of the year
Have been gathered in Spain;
And the Indian rain
Is rich on the
evergreen lands of the Sun;
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There comes to this Cape-
To this alien Shape,
As the waters beat in and the echoes troop forth,
The Wind of the North,
Euroclydon!
And the wilted thyme,
And the patches past
Of the nettles cast
In the drift of the rift, and the broken rime,
Are tumbled and blown
To every zone
With the famished glede, and the plovers thinned
By this fourfold Wind -
This Wind sublime!
On the wrinkled hills
By starts and fits
The wild Moon sits;
And the rindles fill, and flash, and fall
In the way of her light,
Through the straitened night,
When the sea-heralds clamour, and elves of the war
In the
torrents afar,
Hold festival!
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From ridge to ridge
The polar fires
On the naked spires,
With a foreign splendour, flit and flow;
And clough and cave
And architrave
Have a blood-coloured glamour on roof and on wall,
Like a
nether hall
In the hells below!
The dead dry lips
Of the ledges, split
By the
thunder fit
And the
stress of the sprites of the fork锟絛 flame,
Anon break out
With a
shriek and a shout,
Like a hard bitter
laughtercracked and thin
From a ghost with a sin
Too dark for a name!
And all thro' the year,
The
fierce seas run
From sun to sun,
Across the face of a
vacant world!
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And the Wind flies forth
From the wild white North,
That shivers and harries the heart of things,
And shapes with its wings
A Chaos uphurled!
Like one who sees
A rebel light
In the thick of the night,
As he stumbles and staggers on summits afar -
Who looks to it still,
Up hill and hill,
With a
steadfast hope (though the ways be deep,
And rough, and steep),
Like a
steadfast star -
So I, that stand
On the outermost peaks
Of peril, with cheeks
Blue with the salts of a
frosty sea,
Have
learnt to wait,
With an eye elate
And a heart
intent, for the fuller blaze
Of the Beauty that rays
Like a
glimpse for me -
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Of the Beauty that grows
Whenever I hear
The Winds of Fear
From the tops and the bases of barrenness call;
And the
duplicate lore
Which I learn evermore,
Is of Harmony filling and rounding the Storm,
And the marvellous Form
That governs all!
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ARALUEN
RIVER,
myrtle rimmed, and set
Deep
amongst unfooted dells -
Daughter of grey hills of wet,
Born by mossed and yellow wells -
Now that soft September lays
Tender hands on thee and thine,
Let me think of blue-eyed days,
Star-like flowers and leaves of shine!
Cities soil the life with rust:
Water banks are cool and sweet:
River, tired of noise and dust
Here I come to rest my feet.
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Now the month from shade to sun
Fleets and sings supremest songs,
Now the wilful woodwinds run
Through the tangled cedar throngs.
Here are cushioned tufts and turns
Where the
sumptuousnoontide lies.
Here are seen by flags and ferns
Summer's large,
luxurious eyes.
On this spot wan Winter casts
Eyes of ruth, and spares its green
From his bitter sea-nursed blasts,
Spears of rain and hailstones keen.
Rather here abideth Spring,
Lady of a lovely land,