Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow :
Society is all but rude
To this delicious solitude.
No white nor red was ever seen
So amorous as this lovely green.
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress' name:
Little, alas! they know or heed
How far these beauties her exceed !
Fair trees! where'er your barks I wound,
No name shall but your own be found.
When we have run our passion's heat
Love hither makes his best retreat.
The gods, who mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race;
Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow;
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.
What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine, and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness,
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find,
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas,
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.
Such was that happy garden-state
While man there walk'd without a mate:
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there :
Two paradises are in one,
To live in Paradise alone.
How well the skilful gardener drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run,
And, as it works, th' industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we!
How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be reckon'd but with herbs and flowers!
By William Sloane Kennedy
HE moon a light-hung world of gold,
Low-drooping, pale, and phantom-fair;
The fresh pomp of the summer leaves,
And fragrance in the breathing air.
Beneath the trees flat silhouettes,
Mute idiot shapes that shun the light,
Weird crook-kneed things, a fickle crew,
The restless children of the night.
In idle vacant pantomime
They nod and nod forevermore,
And clutch with aimless fluttering hands,
With thin black hands the leaf-strewn floor.
Quivering, wavering there forever
On the bright and silent ground,
Meshed and tangled there together
While the rolling earth goes round,
And the gold-tinged aery ocean
Ripples light in many a breeze
O'er the sweet-breathed purple lilac,
O'er the tall and slumbering trees.
ERE in this wild, primeval dell
Far from the haunts of man,
Where never fashion's footsteps
fell,
Where shriek of steam nor clang
of bell,
Nor din of those who buy and
sell,
Has broken Nature's perfect spell,
May one not hear, who listens well,
The mystic pipe of Pan?
So virgin and unworldly seem
All things in this deep glade
Thick curtained from the noonday beam,
That, hearkening, one may almost dream
Fair naiads plashing in the stream,
While graceful limbs and tresses gleam
Along the dim green shade.
The cool brook runs as clear and sweet
As ever water ran;
I almost hear the rhythmic beat
Of pattering footfalls, light and fleet,
As Daphne speeds, with flying feet
To hide with leaves her safe retreat,
But not the pipe of Pan.
On yonder rocky mountain's sides
Do oreads dance and climb ?
In that dark grot what nymph abides ?
And when the freakish wind-god rides,
Do sylphs float on the breezy tides,
While in the hollow tree-trunk hides
The dryad of old time?
Or is the world so changed to-day
That all the sylvan clan,
Nymph, dryad, oread, sylph and fay
Have flown forevermore away,
So, though we watch, and wait, and pray,
Never again on earth will play
The witching pipe of Pan?
Come, sit on yonder stone and play
O Pan, thy pipe of reeds,
As when the earth was young and
Long ere this dull and sordid day,-
Play till we learn thy simple lay,
And grief and discord fade away,
And selfish care recedes!
O, darkened sense! O, dense, deaf ear!
The world has placed its ban
Against the genii, once so dear,
And strife and greed, for many a year,
Have spoiled the sweet old atmosphere,
So, though he play, we cannot hear
The wondrous pipe of Pan!
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