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<h2>FAVORITES OF PAN</h2> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Once, long ago, before the gods Had left this earth, by stream and forest glade, Where the first plough upturned the clinging sods, Or the lost shepherd strayed, </div> <div class="stanza"> Often to the tired listener's ear There came at noonday or beneath the stars A sound, he knew not whence, so sweet and clear, That all his aches and scars </div> <div class="stanza"> And every brooded bitterness, Fallen asunder from his soul took flight, Like mist or darkness yielding to the press Of an unnamed delight,— </div> <div class="stanza"> [12]A sudden brightness of the heart, A magic fire drawn down from Paradise, That rent the cloud with golden gleam apart,— And far before his eyes </div> <div class="stanza"> The loveliness and calm of earth Lay like a limitless dream remote and strange, The joy, the strife, the triumph and the mirth, And the enchanted change; </div> <div class="stanza"> And so he followed the sweet sound, Till faith had traversed her appointed span, And murmured as he pressed the sacred ground: "It is the note of Pan!" </div> <div class="stanza"> Now though no more by marsh or stream Or dewy forest sounds the secret reed— For Pan is gone—Ah yet, the infinite dream Still lives for them that heed. </div> <div class="stanza"> In April, when the turning year Regains its pensive youth, and a soft breath And amorous influence over marsh and mere Dissolves the grasp of death, </div> <div class="stanza"> To them that are in love with life, Wandering like children with untroubled eyes, Far from the noise of cities and the strife, Strange flute-like voices rise </div> <div class="stanza"> [13]At noon and in the quiet of the night From every watery waste; and in that hour The same strange spell, the same unnamed delight, Enfolds them in its power. </div> <div class="stanza"> An old-world joyousness supreme, The warmth and glow of an immortal balm, The mood-touch of the gods, the endless dream, The high lethean calm. </div> <div class="stanza"> They see, wide on the eternal way, The services of earth, the life of man; And, listening to the magic cry they say: "It is the note of Pan!" </div> <div class="stanza"> For, long ago, when the new strains Of hostile hymns and conquering faiths grew keen, And the old gods from their deserted fanes, Fled silent and unseen, </div> <div class="stanza"> So, too, the goat-foot Pan, not less Sadly obedient to the mightier hand, Cut him new reeds, and in a sore distress Passed out from land to land; </div> <div class="stanza"> And lingering by each haunt he knew, Of fount or sinuous stream or grassy marge, He set the syrinx to his lips, and blew A note divinely large; </div> <div class="stanza"> [14]And all around him on the wet Cool earth the frogs came up, and with a smile He took them in his hairy hands, and set His mouth to theirs awhile, </div> <div class="stanza"> And blew into their velvet throats; And ever from that hour the frogs repeat The murmur of Pan's pipes, the notes, And answers strange and sweet; </div> <div class="stanza"> And they that hear them are renewed By knowledge in some god-like touch conveyed, Entering again into the eternal mood, Wherein the world was made. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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