Collected Poems 1901-1918

Description

LYRICAL POEMS



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THEY TOLD ME



They told me Pan was dead, but I

Oft marvelled who it was that sang

Down the green valleys languidly

Where the grey elder-thickets hang.

Sometimes I thought it was a bird

My soul had charged with sorcery;

Sometimes it seemed my own heart heard

Inland the sorrow of the sea.

But even where the primrose sets

The seal of her pale loveliness,

I found amid the violets

Tears of an antique bitterness.

SORCERY



“What voice is that I hear

Crying across the pool?”

“It is the voice of Pan you hear,

Crying his sorceries shrill and clear,

In the twilight dim and cool.”

“What song is it he sings,

Echoing from afar;

While the sweet swallow bends her wings,

Filling the air with twitterings,

Beneath the brightening star?”

The woodman answered me,

His faggot on his back:-

“Seek not the face of Pan to see;

Flee from his clear note summoning thee

To darkness deep and black!”

“He dwells in thickest shade,

Piping his notes forlorn

Of sorrow never to be allayed;

Turn from his coverts sad

Of twilight unto morn!”

The woodman passed away

Along the forest path;

His ax shone keen and grey

In the last beams of day:

And all was still as death:-

Only Pan singing sweet

Out of Earth’s fragrant shade;

I dreamed his eyes to meet,

And found but shadow laid

Before my tired feet.


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