Emboldened.

 Böcklin, Spring Evening, 1879

And now that the year wearily turns and stretches herself before the perfect waking, the god emboldened begins to blow a clearer note.

Kenneth Grahame, from "The Rural Pan (An April Essay)"

Laugh.

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

I.

What was he doing, the great god Pan,

    Down in the reeds by the river ?

Spreading ruin and scattering ban,

Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,

And breaking the golden lilies afloat

    With the dragon-fly on the river.

II.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,

    From the deep cool bed of the river :

The limpid water turbidly ran,

And the broken lilies a-dying lay,

And the dragon-fly had fled away,

    Ere he brought it out of the river.

III.

High on the shore sate the great god Pan,

    While turbidly flowed the river ;

And hacked and hewed as a great god can,

With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,

Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed

    To prove it fresh from the river.

IV.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan,

    (How tall it stood in the river !)

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,

Steadily from the outside ring,

And notched the poor dry empty thing

    In holes, as he sate by the river.

V.

This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan,

    Laughed while he sate by the river,)

The only way, since gods began

To make sweet music, they could succeed.'

Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,

    He blew in power by the river.

VI.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan !

    Piercing sweet by the river !

Blinding sweet, O great god Pan !

The sun on the hill forgot to die,

And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly

    Came back to dream on the river.

VII.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,

    To laugh as he sits by the river,

Making a poet out of a man :

The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, —

For the reed which grows nevermore again

    As a reed with the reeds in the river.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Play.

PAN WITH US

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?         

 

Robert Frost

Chase.

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when         

  Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

  Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,

  And all went merry as a marriage bell;

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

 

Did ye not hear it?—No; ’twas but the wind,         

  Or the car rattling o’er the stony street:

  On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;

  No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet

To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

Lord Byron

Merrily.

Böcklin, Spring Evening, 1879

Sound the flute!
Now it's mute!
Birds delight,
Day and night,
Nightingale,
In the dale,
Lark in sky, -
Merrily,
Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

Little boy,
Full of joy;
Little girl,
Sweet and small;
Cock does crow,
So do you;
Merry voice,
Infant noise;
Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

Little lamb,
Here I am;
Come and lick
My white neck;
Let me pull
Your soft wool;
Let me kiss
Your soft face;
Merrily, merrily we welcome in the year.

William Blake

Sweet.

HYMN to PAN

From the forests and highlands

        We come, we come;

From the river-girt islands,

        Where loud waves are dumb

            Listening to my sweet pipings.

The wind in the reeds and the rushes,

        The bees on the bells of thyme,

The birds on the myrtle bushes,

        The cicale above in the lime,

And the lizards below in the grass,

Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,

            Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus was flowing,

        And all dark Tempe lay

In Pelion’s shadow, outgrowing

        The light of the dying day,

            Speeded by my sweet pipings.

The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,

        And the Nymphs of the woods and the waves,

To the edge of the moist river-lawns,

        And the brink of the dewy caves,

And all that did then attend and follow,

Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,

            With envy of my sweet pipings.

I sang of the dancing stars,

        I sang of the daedal Earth,

And of Heaven, and the giant wars,

        And Love, and Death, and Birth—

            And then I chang’d my pipings,

Singing how down the vale of Maenalus

        I pursu’d a maiden and clasp’d a reed.

Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!

        It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed.

All wept, as I think both ye now would,

If envy or age had not frozen your blood,

            At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Need.

1.

O goat-foot God of Arcady!

This modern world is grey and old,

And what remains to us of thee?

No more the shepherd lads in glee

Throw apples at thy wattled fold,

O goat-foot God of Arcady!

Nor through the laurels can one see

Thy soft brown limbs, thy beard of gold,

And what remains to us of thee?

And dull and dead our Thames would be,

For here the winds are chill and cold,

O goat-foot God of Arcady!

Then keep the tomb of Helice,

Thine olive-woods, thy vine-clad wold,

And what remains to us of thee?

Though many an unsung elegy

Sleeps in the reeds our rivers hold,

O goat-foot God of Arcady!

Ah, what remains to us of thee?

2.

Ah, leave the hills of Arcady,

Thy satyrs and their wanton play,

This modern world hath need of thee.

No nymph of Faun indeed have we,

For Faun and nymph are old and grey,

Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!

This is the land where liberty

Lit grave-browed Milton on his way,

This modern world hath need of thee!

A land of ancient chivalry

Where gentle Sidney saw the day,

Ah, leave the hills of Arcady.

This fierce sea-lion of the sea,

This England lacks some stronger lay,

This modern world hath need of thee!

Then blow some trumpet loud and free,

And give thine oaten pipe away,

Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!

This modern world hath need of thee!

Oscar Wilde