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PAN came out
of the woods one day,--
His skin and his hair and his
eyes were gray,
The gray of the moss of walls were
they,--
And stood in the sun and looked his fill
At wooded valley and wooded hill.
He stood in the
zephyr, pipes in hand,
On a height of naked pasture
land;
In all the country he did command
He saw no
smoke and he saw no roof.
That was well! and he
stamped a hoof.
His heart knew peace, for none came
here
To this lean feeding save once a year
Someone
to salt the half-wild steer,
Or homespun children
with clicking pails
Who see no little they tell no
tales.
He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach
A
new-world song, far out of reach,
For a sylvan sign
that the blue jay's screech
And the whimper of hawks
beside the sun
Were music enough for him, for one.
Times were changed from what they were:
Such pipes
kept less of power to stir
The fruited bough of the
juniper
And the fragile bluets clustered there
Than the merest aimless breath of air.
They were
pipes of pagan mirth,
And the world had found new
terms of worth.
He laid him down on the sun-burned
earth
And ravelled a flower and looked away--
Play? Play?--What should he play?
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