13
In forehead low, keen eye, and nostril flat
He bore the human grace in mean degree,
But, set beneath his body squat and fat,
Legs like a goat's, and from the hairy knee
The shank fell spare; and, though crosswise he put
His limbs in easeful posture, for the foot
The beast's divided hoof was plain to see.
14
Him then she knew the mighty choric God,
The great hill-haunting and tree-loving Pan;
Whom Zeus had laught to see when first he trod
Olympus, neither god nor beast nor man:
Who every rocky peak and snowy crest
Of the Aspran mountains for his own possest,
And all their alps with bacchic rout o'erran:
15
Whom, when his pipe he plays on loud and sweet,
And o'er the fitted reeds his moist lip flees,
Around in measured step with nimble feet
Water-nymphs dance and Hamadryades:
And all the woodland's airy folk, who shun
Man's presence, to his frolic pastime run
From their perennial wells and sacred trees.
16
Now on his knee his pipe laid by, he spoke
With flippant tongue, wounding unwittingly
The heart he sought to cheer with jest and joke.
'And what hast thou to do with misery,'
He said, 'who hast such beauty as might gain
The love of Eros? Cast away thy pain,
And give thy soul to mirth and jollity.
17
'Thy mortal life is but a brittle vase,
But as thee list with wine or tears to fill;
For all the drops therein are Ohs and Ahs
Of joy or grief according to thy will;
And wouldst thou learn of me my merry way,
I'd teach thee change thy lover every day,
And prize the cup that thou wert fain to spill.
18
'Nay, if thou plunge thou shalt not drown nor sink,
For I will to thee o'er the stream afloat,
And bear thee safe; and O I know a drink
For care, that makes sweet music in the throat.
Come live with me, my love; I'll cure thy chance:
For I can laugh and quaff, and pipe and dance,
Swim like a fish, and caper like a goat.'
19
Speaking, his brute divinity explored
The secret of her silence; and old Pan
Grew kind and told her of a shallow ford
Where lower down the stream o'er pebbles ran,
And one might pass at ease with ankles dry:
Whither she went, and crossing o'er thereby,
Her lonely wanderings through the isle began.
20
But none coud tell, no, nor herself had told
Where food she found, or shelter through the land
By day or night; until by fate control'd
She came by steep ways to the southern strand,
Where, sacred to the Twins and Britomart,
Pent in its rocky theatre apart,
A little town stood on the level sand.