Читать книгу Poems. Volume 1 - George Meredith - Страница 31

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 still more sweet and lovely

For those terrors on her brows,

Those swift glances wild and brilliant,

Those delicious panting vows.

Timidly the timid shoulders

Shrinking from the fervid hand!

Dark the tide of hair back-flowing

From the blue-veined temples bland!

Lovely, too, divine Apollo

In the speed of his pursuit;

With his eye an azure lustre,

And his voice a summer lute!

Looking like some burnished eagle

Hovering o’er a fluttered bird;

Not unseen of silver Naiad,

And of wistful Dryad heard!

Many a morn the naked beauty

Saw her bright reflection drown

In the flowing smooth-faced river,

While the god came sheening down.

Down from Pindus bright Peneus

Tells its muse-melodious source;

Sacred is its fountained birthplace,

And the Orient floods its course.

Many a morn the sunny darling

Saw the rising chariot-rays,

From the winding river-reaches,

Mellowing in amber haze.

Thro’ the flaming mountain gorges

Lo, the River leaps the plain;

Like a wild god-stridden courser,

Tossing high its foamy mane.

Then he swims thro’ laurelled sunlight,

Full of all sensations sweet,

Misty with his morning incense,

To the mirrored maiden’s feet!

Wet and bright the dinting pebbles

Shine where oft she paused and stood;

All her dreamy warmth revolving,

While the chilly waters wooed.

Like to rosy-born Aurora,

Glowing freshly into view,

When her doubtful foot she ventures

On the first cold morning blue.

White as that Thessalian lily,

Fairest Tempe’s fairest flower,

Lo, the tall Peneïan virgin

Stands beneath her bathing bower.

There the laurell’d wreaths o’erarching

Crown’d the dainty shuddering maid;

There the dark prophetic laurel

Kiss’d her with its sister shade.

There the young green glistening leaflets

Hush’d with love their breezy peal;

There the little opening flowerets

Blush’d beneath her vermeil heel!

There among the conscious arbours

Sounds of soft tumultuous wail,

Mysteries of love, melodious,

Came upon the lyric gale!

Breathings of a deep enchantment,

Effluence of immortal grace,

Flitted round her faltering footstep,

Spread a balm about her face!

Witless of the enamour’d presence,

Like a dreamy lotus bud

From its drowsy stem down-drooping,

Gazed she in the glowing flood.

Softly sweet with fluttering presage,

Felt she that ethereal sense,

Drinking charms of love delirious,

Reaping bliss of love intense!

All the air was thrill’d with sunrise,

Birds made music of her name,

And the god-impregnate water

Claspt her image ere she came.

Richer for that glance unconscious!

Dearer for that soft dismay!

And the sudden self-possession!

And the smile as bright as day!

Plunging ’mid her scattered tresses,

With her blue invoking eyes;

See her like a star descending!

Like a rosebud see her rise!

Like a rosebud in the morning

Dashing off its jewell’d dews,

Ere unfolding all its fragrance

It is gathered by the muse!

Beauteous in the foamy laughter

Bubbling round her shrinking waist,

Lo! from locks and lips and eyelids

Rain the glittering pearl-drops chaste!

And about the maiden rapture

Still the ruddy ripples play’d,

Ebbing round in startled circlets

When her arms began to wade;

Flowing in like tides attracted

To the glowing crescent shine!

Clasping her ambrosial whiteness

Like an Autumn-tinted vine!

Sinking low with love’s emotion!

Levying with look and tone

All love’s rosy arts to mimic

Cytherea’s magic zone!

Trembling up with adoration

To the crimson daisy tip

Budding from the snowy bosom—

Fainter than the rose-red lip!

Rising in a storm of wavelets,

That for shelter, feigning fright,

Prest to those twin-heaving havens,

Harbour’d there beneath her light;

Gleaming in a whirl of eddies

Round her lucid throat and neck;

Eddying in a gleam of dimples

Up against her bloomy cheek;

Bribing all the breezy water

With rich warmth, the nymph to keep

In a self-imprison’d plaisance,

Tempting her from deep to deep.

Till at last delirious passion

Thrill’d the god to wild excess,

And the fervour of a moment

Made divinity confess;

And he stood in all his glory!

But so radiant, being near,

That her eyes were frozen on him

In a fascinated fear!

All with orient splendour shining,

All with roseate birth aglow,

Gleam’d the golden god before her,

With his golden crescent bow.

Soon the dazzled light subsided,

And he seem’d a beauteous youth,

Form’d to gain the maiden’s murmurs,

And to pledge the vows of truth.

Ah! that thus he had continued!

O, that such for her had been!

Graceful with all godlike beauty,

But so humanly serene!

Cheeks, and mouth, and mellow ringlets,

Bounteous as the mid-day beam;

Pleading looks and wistful tremour,

Tender as a maiden’s dream!

Palms that like a bird’s throbb’d bosom

Palpitate with eagerness,

Lips, the bridals of the roses,

Dewy sweet from the caress!

Lips and limbs, and eyes and ringlets,

Swaying, praying to one prayer,

Like a lyre, swept by a spirit,

In the still, enraptur’d air.

Like a lyre in some far valley,

Uttering ravishments divine!

All its strings to viewless fingers

Yearning, modulations fine!

Yearning with melodious fervour!

Like a beauteous maiden flower,

When the young beloved three paces

Hovers from the bridal bower.

Throbbing thro’ the dawning stillness!

As a heart within a breast,

When the young beloved is stepping

Radiant to the nuptial nest.

O for Daphne! gentle Daphne

Ever warmer by degrees

Whispers full of hopes and visions

Throng her ears like honey bees!

Never yet was lonely blossom

Woo’d with such delicious voice!

Never since hath mortal maiden

Dwelt on such celestial choice!

Love-suffused she quivers, falters—

Falters, sighs, but never speaks,

All her rosy blood up-gushing

Overflows her ripe young cheeks.

Blushing, sweet with virgin blushes,

All her loveliness a-flame,

Stands she in the orient waters,

Stricken o’er with speechless shame!

Ah! but lovelier, ever lovelier,

As more deep the colour glows,

And the honey-laden lily

Changes to the fragrant rose.

While the god with meek embraces,

Whispering all his sacred charms,

Softly folds her, gently holds her,

In his white encircling arms!

But, O Dian! veil not wholly

Thy pale crescent from the morn!

Vanish not, O virgin goddess,

With that look of pallid scorn!

Still thy pure protecting influence

Shed from those fair watchful eyes!—

Lo! her angry orb has vanished,

And the bright sun thrones the skies!

Voicelessly the forest Virgin

Vanished! but one look she gave—

Keen as Niobean arrow

Thro’ the maiden’s heart it drave.

Thus toward that throning bosom

Where all earth is warmed,—each spot

Nourished with autumnal blessings—

Icy chill was Daphne caught.

Icy chill! but swift revulsion

All her gentler self renewed,

Even as icy Winter quickens

With bud-opening warmth imbued.

Even as a torpid brooklet,

That to the night-gleaming moon

Flashed in turn the frozen glances,

Melts upon the breast of noon.

But no more—O never, never,

Turns she to that bosom bright,

Swiftly all her senses counsel,

All her nerves are strung to flight.

O’er the brows of radiant Pindus

Rolls a shadow dark and cold,

And a sound of lamentation

Issues from its mournful fold.

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.

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.

Tangles of the wild red strawberry

Spread their freckled trammels frail;

In the pathway creeping brambles

Catch her in their thorny trail.

All the widely sweeping greensward

Shifts and swims from knoll to knoll;

Grey rough-fingered oak and elm wood

Push her by from bole to bole.

Groves of lemon, groves of citron,

Tall high-foliaged plane and palm,

Bloomy myrtle, light-blue olive,

Wave her back with gusts of balm.

Languid jasmine, scrambling briony,

Walls of close-festooning braid,

Fling themselves about her, mingling

With her wafted looks, waylaid.

Twisting bindweed, honey’d woodbine,

Cling to her, while, red and blue,

On her rounded form ripe berries

Dash and die in gory dew.

Running ivies dark and lingering

Round her light limbs drag and twine;

Round her waist with languorous tendrils

Reels and wreathes the juicy vine;

Reining in the flying creature

With its arms about her mouth;

Bursting all its mellowing bunches

To seduce her husky drouth;

Crowning her with amorous clusters;

Pouring down her sloping back

Fresh-born wines in glittering rillets,

Following her in crimson track.

Buried, drenched in dewy foliage,

Thus she glimmers from the dawn,

Watched by every forest creature,

Fleet-foot Oread, frolic Faun.

Silver-sandalled Arethusa

Not more swiftly fled the sands,

Fled the plains and fled the sunlights,

Fled the murmuring ocean strands.

O, that now the earth would open!

O, that now the shades would hide!

O, that now the gods would shelter!

Caverns lead and seas divide!

Not more faint soft-lowing Io

Panted in those starry eyes,

When the sleepless midnight meadows

Piteously implored the skies!

Still her breathless flight she urges

By the sanctuary stream,

And the god with golden swiftness

Follows like an eastern beam.

Her the close bewildering greenery

Darkens with its duskiest green,—

Him each little leaflet welcomes,

Flushing with an orient sheen.

Thus he nears, and now all Tempe

Rings with his melodious cry,

Avenues and blue expanses

Beam in his large lustrous eye!

All the branches start to music!

As if from a secret spring

Thousands of sweet bills are bubbling

In the nest and on the wing.

Gleams and shines the glassy river

And rich valleys every one;

But of all the throbbing beauty

Brightest! singled by the sun!

Ivy round her glimmering ancle,

Vine about her glowing brow,

Never sure was bride so beauteous,

Daphne, chosen nymph, as thou!

Thus he nears! and now she feels him

Breathing hot on every limb;

And he hears her own quick pantings—

Ah! that they might be for him.

O, that like the flower he tramples,

Bending from his golden tread,

Full of fair celestial ardours,

She would bow her bridal head.

O, that like the flower she presses,

Nodding from her lily touch,

Light as in the harmless breezes,

She would know the god for such!

See! the golden arms are round her—

To the air she grasps and clings!

See! his glowing arms have wound her—

To the sky she shrieks and springs!

See! the flushing chace of Tempe

Trembles with Olympian air—

See! green sprigs and buds are shooting

From those white raised arms of prayer!

In the earth her feet are rooting!—

Breasts and limbs and lifted eyes,

Hair and lips and stretching fingers,

Fade away—and fadeless rise.

And the god whose fervent rapture

Clasps her finds his close embrace

Full of palpitating branches,

And new leaves that bud apace,

Bound his wonder-stricken forehead;—

While in ebbing measures slow

Sounds of softly dying pulses

Pause and quiver, pause and go;

Go, and come again, and flutter

On the verge of life,—then flee!

All the white ambrosial beauty

Is a lustrous Laurel Tree!

Still with the great panting love-chase

All its running sap is warmed;—

But from head to foot the virgin

Is transfigured and transformed.

Changed!—yet the green Dryad nature

Is instinct with human ties,

And above its anguish’d lover

Breathes pathetic sympathies;

Sympathies of love and sorrow;

Joy in her divine escape;

Breathing through her bursting foliage

Comfort to his bending shape.

Vainly now the floating Naiads

Seek to pierce the laurel maze,

Nought but laurel meets their glances,

Laurel glistens as they gaze.

Nought but bright prophetic laurel!

Laurel over eyes and brows,

Over limbs and over bosom,

Laurel leaves and laurel boughs!

And in vain the listening Dryad

Shells her hand against her ear!—

All is silence—save the echo

Travelling in the distance drear.