Poems (Probyn)/Affinities

by May Probyn

AFFINITIES.

I.

She was a king's daughter,
 With a face like a summer's day—
All the flowers in the valley
 Laughed when she came that way,
Her hair was a rippled shadow,
 Filleted chastely with gold;
Her feet and her hands were lilies,
 Cast 1n the goddess's mould.
The seam of her silken robe
 With twinkle of pearls was traced;
Diamonds dappled her throat,
 Diamonds belted her waist.
Tall she was among women,
 Reared in a courtly place—
She was a king's daughter,
 Beautiful in the face.

II.

He was a young shepherd,
 Born of a nymph and a god,
Born on the open hillside,
 Down by the windy wood.
Day in and day out he followed
 The lambs and the milk-white ewes,
Over Thessalian meadows,
 Wet with Olympian dews.
High on the clefts of the mountain
 His bare feet clambered and clung,
Fearless and free as the panther,
 Whose skin from his shoulder hung.
Like a god could he run and wrestle,
 And play on the reeds, and sing—
He was a mountain shepherd,
 But his heart was the heart of a king.