The Story of Phœbus and Daphne, Applied

T
Thyrsis, a youth of the inspired train,
Fair Sacharissa lov’d, but lov’d in vain;
Like Phœbus sung the no less amorous boy;
Like Daphne she, as lovely, and as coy;
With numbers he the flying nymph pursues,
With numbers such as Phœbus’ self might use;
Such is the chase when love and Fancy leads,
O’er craggy mountains, and through flow’ry meads;
Invok’d to testify the lover’s care,
Or form some image of his cruel fair:
Urg’d with his fury, like a wounded deer,
O’er these he fled; and now approaching near,
Had reach’d the nymph with his harmonious lay,
Whom all his charms could not incline to stay.
Yet what he sung in his immortal strain,
Though unsuccessful, was not sung in vain;
All but the nymph that should redress his wrong,
Attend his passion, and approve his song.
Like Phœbus thus, acquiring unsought praise,
He catch’d at love, and fill’d his arm with bays.
183
Rating:

Comment form:

*Max text - 1500. Manual moderation.

Similar Poems:

The Doleful Lay of Clorinda by Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke
Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke
Ay me, to whom shall I my case complain,
That may compassion my impatient grief?
Or where shall I unfold my inward pain,
That my enriven heart may find relief?
Shall I unto the heavenly pow’rs it show,
Or unto earthly men that dwell below?

To heavens? Ah, they, alas, the authors were,
And workers of my unremedied woe:
For they foresee what to us happens here,
And they foresaw, yet suffered this be so.
From them comes good, from them comes also ill,
That which they made, who can them warn to spill.

To men? Ah, they, alas, like wretched be,
Read Poem
0
256
Rating:

To the Young Wife by Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman
Are you content, you pretty three-years’ wife?
Are you content and satisfied to live
On what your loving husband loves to give,
And give to him your life?

Are you content with work, — to toil alone,
To clean things dirty and to soil things clean;
To be a kitchen-maid, be called a queen, —
Read Poem
0
414
Rating:

The Life of Lincoln West by Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks
Ugliest little boy
that everyone ever saw.
That is what everyone said.

Even to his mother it was apparent—
when the blue-aproned nurse came into the
northeast end of the maternity ward
bearing his squeals and plump bottom
looped up in a scant receiving blanket,
Read Poem
0
369
Rating:

Streets in Shanghai by Tomas Tranströmer
Tomas Tranströmer
1
The white butterfly in the park is being read by many.
I love that cabbage-moth as if it were a fluttering corner of truth itself!

At dawn the running crowds set our quiet planet in motion.
Then the park fills with people. To each one, eight faces polished like jade, for all
situations, to avoid making mistakes.
To each one, there's also the invisible face reflecting "something you don't talk about."
Something that appears in tired moments and is as rank as a gulp of viper schnapps with its long scaly aftertaste.
Read Poem
0
438
Rating:

In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 106 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Read Poem
0
248
Rating:

Technical Notes by James Laughlin
James Laughlin
Catullus is my master and I mix
a little acid and a bit of honey
in his bowl love

is my subject & the lack of love
which lack is what makes evil a
poet must strike

Catullus could rub words so hard
together their friction burned a
Read Poem
0
323
Rating:

Change by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
And this is what is left of youth! . . .
There were two boys, who were bred up together,
Shared the same bed, and fed at the same board;
Each tried the other’s sport, from their first chase,
Young hunters of the butterfly and bee,
To when they followed the fleet hare, and tried
The swiftness of the bird. They lay beside
The silver trout stream, watching as the sun
Read Poem
0
235
Rating:

Two Fusiliers by Robert Graves
Robert Graves
And have we done with War at last? Well, we've been lucky devils both, And there's no need of pledge or oath
Read Poem
0
213
Rating:

Blues for Alice by Clark Coolidge
Clark Coolidge
When you get in on a try you never learn it back
umpteen times the tenth part of a featured world
in black and in back it’s roses and fostered nail
bite rhyme sling slang, a song that teaches without
travail of the tale, the one you longing live
and singing burn

It’s insane to remain a trope, of a rinsing out
or a ringing whatever, it’s those bells that . . .
Read Poem
0
232
Rating:

War Mothers by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
There is something in the sound of drum and fife
That stirs all the savage instincts into life.
In the old times of peace we went our ways,
Through proper days
Of little joys and tasks. Lonely at times,
When from the steeple sounded wedding chimes,
Telling to all the world some maid was wife—
But taking patiently our part in life
Read Poem
0
286
Rating:

Stanzas for Music by Lord Byron (George Gordon)
Lord Byron (George Gordon)
There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming:
Read Poem
0
302
Rating:

I Dreamed That I Was Old by Stanley Kunitz
Stanley Kunitz
I dreamed that I was old: in stale declension
Fallen from my prime, when company
Was mine, cat-nimbleness, and green invention,
Before time took my leafy hours away.

My wisdom, ripe with body’s ruin, found
Itself tart recompense for what was lost
In false exchange: since wisdom in the ground
Has no apocalypse or pentecost.
Read Poem
0
212
Rating:

So We'll Go No More a Roving by Lord Byron (George Gordon)
Lord Byron (George Gordon)
So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.
Read Poem
0
283
Rating:

from “Poems for Moscow” by Marina Tsvetaeva
Marina Tsvetaeva
From my hands—take this city not made by hands,
my strange, my beautiful brother.

Take it, church by church—all forty times forty churches,
and flying up the roofs, the small pigeons;

And Spassky Gates—and gates, and gates—
where the Orthodox take off their hats;

And the Chapel of Stars—refuge chapel—
where the floor is—polished by tears;
Read Poem
0
235
Rating:

O by Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke
Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke
Oh, what a lantern, what a lamp of light
Is thy pure word to me
To clear my paths and guide my goings right!
I swore and swear again,
I of the statues will observer be,
Thou justly dost ordain.

The heavy weights of grief oppress me sore:
Lord, raise me by the word,
As thou to me didst promise heretofore.
And this unforced praise
I for an off’ring bring, accept, O Lord,
And show to me thy ways.

What if my life lie naked in my hand,
Read Poem
0
647
Rating:

Scots Wha Hae by Robert Burns
Robert Burns
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!

Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour;
See approach proud Edward's power—
Chains and slavery!

Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave!
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Let him turn and flee!

Read Poem
0
282
Rating:

Map of the New World by Derek Walcott
Derek Walcott
I Archipelagoes At the end of this sentence, rain will begin.
At the rain's edge, a sail.

Slowly the sail will lose sight of islands;
into a mist will go the belief in harbours
of an entire race.

The ten-years war is finished.
Helen's hair, a grey cloud.
Read Poem
0
395
Rating:

Psalm For My Faith by Jack Agüeros
Jack Agüeros
Lord, it’s not true
That my faith is cooling.
It’s just that people
Are saying that candle smoke
Has caused cancer in church mice.
And I also worry that candle light
Is too weak to reach your cloud.

Do I need a hydrogen candle?
Read Poem
0
233
Rating:

Open by Jean Valentine
Jean Valentine
I lay down under language
it left me and I slept

—You, the Comforter, came into the room

my blood, my mouth
all buttoned away—

Makers of houses, books, clothes-
makers, goodbye—
Read Poem
0
243
Rating:

Felix Randal by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Felix Randal the farrier, O is he dead then? my duty all ended,
Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome
Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it, and some
Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended?

Sickness broke him. Impatient, he cursed at first, but mended
Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some
Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom
Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended!

This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears.
My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,
Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal;

How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,
Read Poem
0
223
Rating: