Daphne

But thou shalt ever lie dead, nor shall there be any remembrance of thee then or thereafter, for thou hast not of the roses of Pieria…
                                                                  —Sappho to a Good Housekeeper.

What greater grief could be
Than to be born a poet — and a woman!
To have to mind the trivial daily tasks
That bind the heart from revery and dream,
Or else to earn the scorn of the whole world!
And yet the world will marvel that no woman
Achieves the artist's laurel!...
                                              Ah, Daphne!
Who fled before the bright beams of Apollo,
Transfixed at last in his own clinging laurel!

Thus is it to stand rooted deep in life,
Yet wrapped in green flame of the clinging laurel.