Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx-do thou now,

By thy love's milky brow!

By all the trembling mazes that she ran,

Hear us, great Pan !

"O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles,
What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees

Their golden honeycombs; our village leas

Their fairest blossom'd beans and poppied corn ;
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,

To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries

Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies

Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year

All its completions-be quickly near,

By every wind that nods the mountain pine,

O forester divine!

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Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies

For willing service; whether to surprise

The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;

Or upward ragged precipices flit

To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw

Bewildered shepherds to their path again;

Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,

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And gather up all fancifullest shells

For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,

And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;

Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown-

By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!

"O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,

While ever and anon to his shorn peers

A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,

When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn

Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,

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To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,

That come a swooning over hollow grounds,

And wither drearily on barren moors:

Dread opener of the mysterious doors

Leading to universal knowledge-see,

Great son of Dryope,

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The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!

Be still the unimaginable lodge

For solitary thinkings; such as dodge

Conception to the very bourne of heaven,

Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,

That spreading in this dull and clodded earth

Gives it a touch ethereal-a new birth :

Be still a symbol of immensity;

A firmament reflected in a sea;

An element filling the space between ;

An unknown-but no more: we humbly screen
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
And giving out a shout most heaven rending,

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Conjure thee to receive our humble Pæan,

Upon thy Mount Lycean!

Even while they brought the burden to a close,

A shout from the whole multitude arose,

That lingered in the air like dying rolls

Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals

Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,

Young companies nimbly began dancing

To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.

Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly

To tunes forgotten-out of memory:

Fair creatures! whose young childrens' children bred
Thermopyla its heroes-not yet dead,

But in old marbles ever beautiful.

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High genitors, unconscious did they cull

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Time's sweet first-fruits-they danc'd to weariness,

And then in quiet circles did they press

The hillock turf, and caught the latter end

Of some strange history, potent to send

A young mind from its bodily tenement.

Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent

On either side; pitying the sad death

Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,-Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.

The archers too, upon a wider plain,

Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,

And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft

Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,

Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope

Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee

And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,

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Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young

Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue

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Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,

And very, very deadliness did nip

Her motherly cheeks. Arous'd from this sad mood

By one, who at a distance loud halloo'd,

Uplifting his strong bow into the air,

Many might after brighter visions stare :