Daphne and Apollo

Mine fingers on these golden strings of sun

Glissade across the Earth.

Yet thou dost run!

Imagine them on your skin!

For thee I would play thereon

Philharmonias of stars!

Picture with thine ears such ecstasy!

Yet if thou couldst not endure such intensities

Merely simple lays of seas or gentle arias of mountains...

Oh, my little fugitive!  Why dost thou run?

Is it a chase thou wantest?

Listen to this fugue of endless clouds

Hearken this to thine breast too

A canon of giant waves

But this too, listen to the rondures of soft wind

That pursues thee

Oh, how I would touch thee

And this is how I would, my Daphne

I would play my music deep inside you

If thou wouldst only let me come unto thee

And hold you close, prophecy wouldst thou know

Yet how thou dost run!

If I  could only know thee deeply...

My  most supreme music is what I feel

When I gaze upon thee, little nymph

Yet how thou dost run!

And now that I’ve come to where thou art

Now how thou hast horribly transformed,
But thou will grace from now on the heads of great poets.