The viols end, and two by two they pass
Out of this blaze into the leafy dark,
Too ghostly and too dim across the grass,
Too soon obscured and blotted, all,—till Hark!
This old, slow music that is like a sigh
For silver feet gone, ah, how lightly by.
REDEMPTION
The old gods wait where secret beauty stirs,
By green, untempled altars of the Spring,
If haply, still, there be some worshippers
Whose hearts are moved with long remembering.
The cloven feet of Pan are on the hill,
His reedy musics sadder than all rains,
Since none will seek—pipe ever as he will—
Those unanointed and neglected fanes.
Beauty and joy—the bread and wine and all—
We have foresworn; our noisy hearts forget;
We stray and on strange altars cry and call ...
Ah, patient gods, be patient with us yet,
And Pan, pipe on, pipe on, till we shall rise,
And follow, and be happy, and be wise.
THE HUNTED
There is no rest for them, even in Death:
As life had harried them from lair to lair,
Still with unquiet eyes and furtive breath,
They haunt the secret by-ways of the air.
They know Earth's outer regions like a street,
And on pale ships that make no port of call,
They pass in silence when they chance to meet,
Saying no names, telling no tales at all.