Pan and Thalassius

A Lyrical Idyl THALASSIUS     Pan! PAN     O sea-stray, seed of Apollo,     What word wouldst thou have with me?     My ways thou wast fain to follow     Or ever the years hailed thee     Man.     Now     If August brood on the valleys,     If satyrs laugh on the lawns,     What part in the wildwood alleys     Hast thou with the fleet-foot fauns     Thou?     See!     Thy feet are a man's not cloven     Like these, not light as a boy's:     The tresses and tendrils inwoven     That lure us, the lure of them cloys     Thee.     Us     The joy of the wild woods never     Leaves free of the thirst it slakes:     The wild love throbs in us ever     That burns in the dense hot brakes     Thus.     Life,     Eternal, passionate, awless,     Insatiable, mutable, dear,     Makes all men's law for us lawless:     We strive not: how should we fear     Strife?     We,     The birds and the bright winds know not     Such joys as are ours in the mild     Warm woodland; joys such as grow not     In waste green fields of the wild     Sea.     No;     Long since, in the world's wind veering,     Thy heart was estranged from me:     Sweet Echo shall yield thee not hearing:     What have we to do with thee?     Go. THALASSIUS     Ay!     Such wrath on thy nostril quivers     As once in Sicilian heat     Bade herdsmen quail, and the rivers     Shrank, leaving a path for thy feet     Dry?     Nay,     Low down in the hot soft hollow     Too snakelike hisses thy spleen:     "O sea-stray, seed of Apollo!"     What ill hast thou heard or seen?     Say.     Man     Knows well, if he hears beside him     The snarl of thy wrath at noon,     What evil may soon betide him,     Or late, if thou smite not soon,     Pan.     Me     The sound of thy flute, that flatters     The woods as they smile and sigh,     Charmed fast as it charms thy satyrs,     Can charm no faster than I     Thee.     Fast     Thy music may charm the splendid     Wide woodland silence to sleep     With sounds and dreams of thee blended     And whispers of waters that creep     Past.     Here     The spell of thee breathes and passes     And bids the heart in me pause,     Hushed soft as the leaves and the grasses     Are hushed if the storm's foot draws     Near.     Yet     The panic that strikes down strangers     Transgressing thy ways unaware     Affrights not me nor endangers     Through dread of thy secret snare     Set. PAN     Whence     May man find heart to deride me?     Who made his face as a star     To shine as a God's beside me?     Nay, get thee away from us, far     Hence. THALASSIUS     Then     Shall no man's heart, as he raises     A hymn to thy secret head,     Wax great with the godhead he praises:     Thou, God, shalt be like unto dead     Men. PAN     Grace     I take not of men's thanksgiving,     I crave not of lips that live;     They die, and behold, I am living,     While they and their dead Gods give     Place. THALASSIUS     Yea:     Too lightly the words were spoken     That mourned or mocked at thee dead:     But whose was the word, the token,     The song that answered and said     Nay? PAN     Whose     But mine, in the midnight hidden,     Clothed round with the strength of night     And mysteries of things forbidden     For all but the one most bright     Muse? THALASSIUS     Hers     Or thine, O Pan, was the token     That gave back empire to thee     When power in thy hands lay broken     As reeds that quake if a bee     Stirs? PAN     Whom     Have I in my wide woods need of?     Urania's limitless eyes     Behold not mine end, though they read of     A word that shall speak to the skies     Doom. THALASSIUS     She     Gave back to thee kingdom and glory,     And grace that was thine of yore,     And life to thy leaves, late hoary     As weeds cast up from the hoar     Sea.     Song     Can bid faith shine as the morning     Though light in the world be none:     Death shrinks if her tongue sound warning,     Night quails, and beholds the sun     Strong. PAN     Night     Bare rule over men for ages     Whose worship wist not of me     And gat but sorrows for wages,     And hardly for tears could see     Light.     Call     No more on the starry presence     Whose light through the long dark swam:     Hold fast to the green world's pleasance:     For I that am lord of it am     All. THALASSIUS     God,     God Pan, from the glad wood's portal     The breaths of thy song blow sweet:     But woods may be walked in of mortal     Man's thought, where never thy feet     Trod.     Thine     All secrets of growth and of birth are,     All glories of flower and of tree,     Wheresoever the wonders of earth are;     The words of the spell of the sea     Mine.