Gods! we vainly do adjure you,—
Ye return nor voice nor sign:
Not a votary could secure you
Even a grave for your Divine!
Not a grave, to show thereby,
Here these grey old gods do lie!
Pan, Pan is dead.
Even that Greece who took your wages,
Calls the obolus outworn ;
And the hoarse deep-throated ages
Laugh your godships unto scorn-
And the Poets do disclaim you,
Or grow colder if they name you-
And Pan is dead.
Gods bereaved, gods belated,
With your purples rent asunder!
Gods discrowned and desecrated,
Disinherited of thunder!
Now, the goats may climb and crop
The soft grass on Ida's top-
Now Pan is dead.
Calm, of old, the bark went onward,
When a cry more loud than wind,
Rose up, deepened, and swept sunward,
From the pilèd Dark behind:
And the sun shrank and grew pale,
Breathed against by the great wail-
Pan, Pan is dead.
And the rowers from the benches Fell,-each shuddering on his faceWhile departing Influences
Struck a cold back through the place: And the shadow of the ship
Reeled along the passive deep-
Pan, Pan is dead.
O brave poets, keep back nothing;
Nor mix falsehood with the whole!
Look up Godward! speak the truth in
Worthy song from earnest soul!
Hold, in high poetic duty,
Truest Truth the fairest Beauty!
Pan, Pan is dead.
SLEEP on, Baby, on the floor,
Tired of all the playing,
Sleep with smile the sweeter for
That you dropped away in!
On your curls' full roundness, stand
Golden lights serenely-
One cheek, pushed out by the hand,
Folds the dimple inly:
Little head and little foot
Heavy laid for pleasure,
Underneath the lids half shut,
Slants the shining azure ;-
Open-soul in noonday sun,
So, you lie and slumber!
Nothing evil having done,
Nothing can encumber.
I, who cannot sleep as well,
Shall I sigh to view you?
Or sigh further to foretell
All that may undo you?
Nay, keep smiling, little child,
Ere the sorrow neareth.
I will smile too! Patience mild
Pleasure's token weareth,
Nay, keep sleeping before loss;
I shall sleep though losing!
As by cradle, so by cross,
Sure is the reposing.
And God knows who sees us twain,
Child at childish leisure,
I am near as tired of pain
As you seem of pleasure;
Very soon too, by His
grace
Gently wrapt around me,
Shall I show as calm a face,
Shall I sleep as soundly!
Differing in this, that you
Clasp your playthings sleeping,
While my hand shall drop the few
Given to my keeping;
Differing in this, that I
Sleeping shall be colder,
And in waking presently,
Brighter to beholder!
Differing in this beside
(Sleeper, have you heard me?
Do you move, and open wide
Eyes of wonder towards me?)-
That while you, I thus recall
From your sleep,-I solely,
Me from mine an angel shall,
With reveille holy !
"To win the secret of a weed's plain heart." LOWELL.
MOUNTAIN gorses, ever golden! Cankered not the whole year long! Do you teach us to be strong, Howsoever pricked and holden Like your thorny blooms, and so Trodden on by rain and snow
Up the hill-side of this life, as bleak as where ye grow?
Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms!
Do ye teach us to be glad
When no summer can be had,
Blooming in our inward bosoms?
Ye, whom God preserveth still,
Set as lights upon a hill
Tokens to the wintry earth that Beauty liveth still!
Mountain gorses, do ye teach us
From that academic chair
Canopied with azure air,
That the wisest word Man reaches
Is the humblest he can speak?
Ye, who live on mountain peak,
Yet live low along the ground, beside
the grasses meek!
Mountain gorses! since Linnæus Knelt beside you on the sod, For your beauty thanking God,For your teaching, ye should see us Bowing in prostration new. Whence arisen,-if one or two Drops be on our cheeks-O world! they are not tears, but dew.
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