Daphne

Why do you follow me?--
Any moment I can be
Nothing but a laurel-tree.

Any moment of the chase
I can leave you in my place
A pink bough for your embrace.

Yet if over hill and hollow
Still it is your will to follow,
I am off;--to heel, Apollo!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Edna St. Vincent Millay

To Kathleen

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Epitaph

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Macdougal Street

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Journey

        Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
        And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
        Blow over me--I am so tired, so tired
        Of passing pleasant places!    All my life,
        Following Care along the dusty road,
        Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed;
        Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand
        Tugged ever, and I passed.    All my life long
        Over my shoulder have I looked at peace;
        And now I fain would lie in this long grass
        And close my eyes.
            Yet onward!
                        Cat birds call
        Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk
        Are guttural.    Whip-poor-wills wake and cry,
        Drawing the twilight close about their throats.
        Only my he...

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Elaine

        OH, come again to Astolat!
            I will not ask you to be kind.
        And you may go when you will go,
            And I will stay behind.

        I will not say how dear you are,
            Or ask you if you hold me dear,
        Or trouble you with things for you
            The way I did last year.

        So still the orchard, Lancelot,
            So very still the lake shall be,
        You could not guess--though you should guess--
            What is become of me.

        So wide shall be the garden-walk,
            The garden-seat so very wide,
        You needs must think--if you should think--
            The lily maid had died.

        Save that, a little way away,
            I'd watch you for a littl...

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Daphne to Apollo. Imitated From The First Book Of Ovid's Metamorphosis

Apollo.
Abate, fair fugitive, abate thy speed,
Dismiss thy fears, and turn thy beauteous head;
With kind regard a panting lover view;
Less swiftly fly, less swiftly I'll pursue;
Pathless, alas! and rugged is the ground,
Some stone may hurt thee, or some thorn may wound.

Daphne aside
This care is for himself as pure as death;
One mile has put the fellow out of breath:
He'll never go, I'll lead him th' other round;
Washy he is, perhaps not over sound.

Apollo
You fly, alas! not knowing whom you fly;
Nor ill-bred swain, nor rusty clown am I:
I Claros' isle and Tenedos command,

Daphne
Thank ye, I would not leave my native land.

Apollo
What is to come be certain arts I know.

Daphne
Pish! Partridge has a fair pre...

Matthew Prior

Daphne

Daphne! Ladons daughter, Daphne! Set thyself in silver light,
Take thy thoughts of fairest texture, weave them into words of white
Weave the rhyme of rose-lipped Daphne, nymph of wooded stream and shade,
Flying love of bright Apollo, fleeting type of faultless maid!
She, when followed from the forelands by the lord of lyre and lute,
Sped towards far-singing waters, past deep gardens flushed with fruit;
Took the path against Peneus, panted by its yellow banks;
Turned, and looked, and flew the faster through grey-tufted thicket ranks;
Flashed amongst high flowered sedges: leaped across the brook, and ran
Down to where the fourfold shadows of a nether glade began;
There she dropped, like falling Hesper, heavy hair of radiant head
Hiding all the young abundance of her beautys white and ...

Henry Kendall

The Pursuit of Daphne.

    Daphne is running, running through the grass,
        The long stalks whip her ankles as she goes.
    I saw the nymph, the god, I saw them pass
        And how a mounting flush of tender rose
    Invaded the white bosom of the lass
        And reached her shoulders, conquering their snows.
    He wasted all his breath, imploring still:
    They passed behind the shadow of the hill.

    The mad course goes across the silent plain,
        Their flying footsteps make a path of sound
    Through all the sleeping country.    Now with pain
        She runs across a stretch of stony ground
    That wounds her soft-palmed feet and now again
        She hastens through a wood where flowers abound,
    Which staunch her cuts with balsam where she treads
    And f...

Edward Shanks

To Chloe I

Why do you shun me, Chloe, like the fawn,
That, fearful of the breezes and the wood,
Has sought her timorous mother since the dawn,
And on the pathless mountain tops has stood?

Her trembling heart a thousand fears invites,
Her sinking knees with nameless terrors shake,--
Whether the rustling leaf of spring affrights,
Or the green lizards stir the slumbering brake.

I do not follow with a tigerish thought,
Or with the fierce Gætulian lion's quest;
So, quickly leave your mother, as you ought,
Full ripe to nestle on a husband's breast.

Eugene Field