The Dead Pan

Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas!

Can ye listen in your silence?

Can your mystic voices tell us

Where ye hide? In floating islands

With a wind that evermore

Keeps you out of sight of shore?

Pan, Pan is dead.

In what revels are ye sunken

In old Æthiopia?

Have the pygmies made you drunken,

Bathing in mandragora

Your divine pale lips, that shiver

Like the lotus in the river?

Pan, Pan is dead.

Do ye sit there still in slumber,

In gigantic Alpine rows?

The black poppies out of number

Nodding, dripping from your brows

To the red lees of your wine,—

And so kept alive and fine?

Pan, Pan is dead.

Or lie crushed your stagnant corses

Where the silver spheres roll on,

Stung to life by centric forces

Thrown like rays out from the sun!—

While the smoke of your old altars

Is the shroud that round you welters?

      Great Pan is dead.

Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas,

Said the old Hellenic tongue!

Said the hero-oaths, as well as

Poets' songs the sweetest sung!

Have ye grown deaf in a day?

Can ye speak not yea or nay—

      Since Pan is dead?

Do ye leave your rivers flowing

All alone, O Naiades,

While your drenched locks dry slow in

This cold feeble sun and breeze?—

Not a word the Naiads say,

Though the rivers run for aye.

      For Pan is dead.

Fiona the gloaming of the oak wood,

O ye Dryads, could ye flee?

At the rushing thunder-stroke, would

No sob tremble through the tree?—

Not a word the Dryads say,

Though the forests wave for aye.

      For Pan is dead.

Ha e ye left the mountain places,

Oreads wild, for other tryst?

Shall we see no sudden faces

Strike a glory through the mist?

Not a sound the silence thrills,

Of the everlasting hills.

      Pan, Pan is dead.

O twelve gods of Plato's vision,

Crowned to starry wanderings,—

With your chariots in procession,

And your silver clash of wings!

Very pale ye seem to rise,

Ghosts of Grecian deities—

      Now Pan is dead!

Jove! that right hand is unloaded,

Whence the thunder did prevail:

While, in idiocy of godhead,

Thou art staring the stars pale!

And thine eagle, blind and old,

Roughs his feathers in the cold.

      Pan, Pan is dead.

Where, O Juno, is the glory

Of thy regal look and tread?

Will they lay, for evermore, thee

On thy dim, straight, golden bed?

Will thy queendom all lie hid

Meekly under either lid?

      Pan, Pan is dead

Ha, Apollo! Floats his golden

Hair all mist-like where he stands;

While the Muses hang enfolding

Knee and foot with faint wild hands?

'Neath the clanging of thy bow,

Niobe looked lost as thou!

      Pan, Pan is dead.

Shall the casque with its brown iron

Pallas' broad blue eyes eclipse,

And no hero take inspiring

From the God-Greek of her lips?

'Neath her olive dost thou sit,

Mars the mighty, cursing it?

      Pan, Pan is dead.

Bacchus, Bacchus! on the panther

He swoons,—hound with his own vines!

And his Maenads slowly saunter,

Head aside, among the pines,

While they murmur dreamingly,—

"Evohe—ah—evohe—"

      Ah, Pan is dead.

Neptune lies beside the trident,

Dull and senseless as a stone:

And old Pluto, deaf and silent,

Is cast out into the sun.

Ceres smileth stern thereat,—

"We all now are desolate—"

      Now Pan is dead.

Aphrodite! dead and driven

As thy native foam thou art;

With the eestus long done heaving

On the white calm of thine heart!

Ai Adonis! At that shriek,

Not a tear runs down her cheek—

      Pan, Pan is dead.

And the Loves, we used to know from

One another, huddled lie,

Frore as taken in a snowstorm,

Close beside her tenderly,—

As if each had weakly tried

Once to kiss her as he died.

      Pan, Pan is dead.

What, and Hermes! Time enthralleth

All thy cunning, Hermes, thus,—

And the ivy blindly crawleth

"Round thy brave caduceus?

Hast thou no new message for us,

Full of thunder and Jove-glories?

      Nay! Pan is dead.

Crowned Cybele's great turret

Rocks and crumbles on her bead:

Roar the lions of her chariot

Toward the wilderness, unfed:

Scornful children are not mute,—

"Mother, mother, walk a-foot—

      Since Pan is dead."

In the fiery-hearted centre

Of the solemn universe,

Ancient Vesta,—who could enter

To consume thee with this curse?

Drop thy grey chin on thy knee,

O thou palsied Mystery!

      For Pan is dead.

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 face—

While departing Influences

Struck a cold back through the place:

And the shadow of the ship

Reeled along the passive deep—

      Pan, Pan is dead.

And that dismal cry rose slowly,

And sank slowly through the air;

Full of spirit's melancholy

And eternity's despair!

And they heard the words it said—

Pan is dead—Great Pan is dead—

      Pan, Pan is dead.

'Twas the hour when One in Sion

Hung for love's sake on a cross—

When His brow was chill with dying,

And his soul was faint with loss;

When his priestly blood dropped downward,

And his kingly eyes looked throneward—

      Then, Pan was dead.

By the love He stood alone in,

His sole Godhead stood complete:

And the false gods fell down moaning,

Each from off his golden seat—

All the false gods with a cry

Rendered up their deity—

      Pan, Pan was dead.

Wailing wide across the islands,

They rent, vest-like, their Divine!

And a darkness and a silence

Quenched the light of every shrine:

And Dodona's oak swang lonely

Henceforth, to the tempest only.

      Pan, Pan was dead.

Pythia staggered,—feeling o'er her,

Her lost god's forsaking look,

Straight her eyeballs filmed with horror

And her crispy fillets shook—

And her lips gasped through their foam,

For a word that did not come.

      Pan, Pan was dead.

O ye vain false gods of Hellas,

Ye are silent evermore!

And I dash down this old chalice,

Whence libations ran of yore.

See! the wine crawls in the dust

Wormlike—as your glories must!

      Since Pan is dead.

Get to dust, as common mortals,

By a common doom and track!

Let no Schiller from the portals

Of that Hades call you hack,—

Or instruct us to weep all

At your antique funeral.

      Pan, Pan is dead.

By your beauty, which confesses

Some chief Beauty conquering you,—

By our grand heroic guesses,

Through your falsehood, at the True,—

We will weep not...!—earth shall roll

Heir to each god's aureole—

      And Pan is dead.

Earth outgrows the mythic fancies

Sung beside her in her youth:

And those debonaire romances

Sound but dull beside the truth.

Phœbus' chariot-course is run!

Look up, poets, to the sun!

      Pan, Pan is dead.

Christ hath sent us down the angels;

And the whole earth and the skies

Are illumed by altar-candles

Lit for blessed mysteries.

And a Priest's Hand, through creation,

Waveth calm and consecration—

      And Pan is dead.

Truth is fair: should we forego it?

Can we sigh right for a wrong?

God Himself is the best Poet,

And the Real is His song.

Sing His truth out fair and full,

And secure His beautiful.

      Let Pan be dead.

Truth is large. Our aspiration

Scarce embraces half we be.

Shame! to stand in His creation

And doubt Truth's sufficiency!—

To think God's song unexcelling

The poor tales of our own telling—

      When Pan is dead.

What is true and just and honest,

What is lovely, what is pure—

All of praise that hath admonisht,—

All of virtue, shall endure,—

These are themes for poets' uses,

Stirring nobler than the Muses—

      Ere Pan was 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.