HYMN OF PAN
by: Percy Bysshe Shelly
(1792-1822)
- ROM 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 know, Apollo,
- With envy of my sweet pipings.
-
- I sang of the dancing stars,
- I sang of the dædal earth,
- And of heaven, and the giant wars,
- And love, and death, and birth.
- And then I changed my pipings--
- Singing how down the vale of Mænalus
- I pursued 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.
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