Pan-Worship, and Other Poems

Pan-Worship, and Other Poems

Title: Pan-Worship, and Other Poems Author: Eleanor Farjeon Release Date: November 28, 2017 [EBook #56074] Language: English Credits: Produced by Larry B. Harrison, MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) In Arcady there lies a crystal spring Ring'd all about with green melodious reeds Swaying seal'd music up and down the wind. Here on its time-defacd pedestal The image of a half-forgotten God Crumbles to its complete oblivion. The faithful and invariable earth Tilts at the shrine her sacrificial cup, Spilling libations from the brim that runs The golden nectar of her daffodils And rivulets of summer-breathing flow'rs. O evanescent temples built of man To deities he honoured and dethroned! Earth shoots a trail of her eternal vine To crown the head that men have ceased to honour. Beneath the coronal of leaf and lichen The mocking smile upon the lips derides Pan's lost dominion; but the pointed ears Are keen and prick'd with old remember'd sounds. All my breast aches with longing for the past! Thou God of stone, I have a craving in me For knowledge of thee as thou wert in old Enchanted twilights in Arcadia.10 Arcadia! it is the very music Of the first spring-tide rippling its first wave Over the naked, laughing baby world ... Come again, thou sparkling spring-tide, come again, Rush in and flood this autumn from my soul! These waters welling at a dead God's shrine, These happy waters bubbling limpid kisses, Even with such bright and eager lips made wet The hem of the earth's garment in the days When earth was youthful and the Gods of Greece In starry constellation crowned Olympus. What drifting mists have veil'd the Olympian fires? What of the Gods of Greece? and what of Greece? O virgin Greece, standing with naked feet In the morning dews of the world against the light Of an infant dawn! old Greece, ever-young Greece, The pagan in my blood, the instinct in me That yearns back, back to nature-worship, cries Aloud to thee! I would stoop to kiss those feet, Sweet white wet feet washed with the earth's first dews: And leaning ear to grass I would re-catch Echoes of footsteps sounding down dim ages For ever the music once they made on thee: The flaming step of the young Apollo when, With limbs like light and golden locks toss'd back On a smooth ivory shoulder, he avenged His mother's wrongs on Python: the dreaming step11 Of Hylas in the woods of Mysia Leading to sleep beneath sweet sylvan waters: The laughing step of untrammell'd Atalanta Spurning the ground before her golden capture: Child-Proserpina stepping like a flower, And the singing step of Syrinx fleeingwhat? If thou couldst speak, neglected, sneering stone, Thou wouldst know how to answer me. Wilt thou Not speak?... How still it is!... The noise of the world Is shut about with silence!... If I kneel, Bend and adore, make sacrifice to thee, If to thy long-deserted fane I bring Tribute of milk and honeythen if I snap That loveliest pipe of all at the spring's margin And let the song of Syrinx from its hollow, Nay, even the nymph's sweet selfO Pan, old Pan, Shall I not see thee stirring in the stone, Crack thy confinement, leap forthbe again? I can believe it, master of bright streams, Lord of green woodlands, king of sun-spread plains And star-splashed hills and valleys drenched in moonlight! And I shall see again a dance of Dryads And airy shapes of Oreads circling free To shy sweet pipings of fantastic fauns And lustier-breathing satyrs ... God of Nature, Thrice hailing thee by name with boisterous lungs12 I will thrill thee back from the dead ages, thus: Pan! Pan! O Pan! bring back thy reign again Upon the earth!... Numb pointed ears, ye hear Only the wash and whisper of far waters, The pale green waters of thin distant Springs Under the pale green light of distant moons Washing upon the shores of the old, old world With a foam of flowers, a foam of whispering flowers.... ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 56074
Author: Farjeon, Eleanor
Release Date: Nov 28, 2017
Format: eBook
Language: English