XVIII

Thus may we dance the light away Of yet one more unmemoried day. But, the dance ended, I will go Beyond the reach of pipes that blow

A sadness thrilling through my veins.... For now within my spirit reigns The Faun's Shadow: before whose brooding face, Sadness. Silent, there trail on gliding pace

A multitude of restless Fears, Obscure Griefs and obscurer Tears, Bewildered Sighs, waned Phantasies, And all disastrous Presences,

Mutely prophetic of a Woe I know not yet, but I shall know. Such power Pan's grief hath to oppress, And Memory!— since now I guess

Only too well that there must come Twilight, Calamity, and Doom. For once I saw beneath an oak A bard so aged it seemed he woke

That moment from a sleep of years And in his voice were sleep and tears.... Till, wide-eyed, he, raging, spake, Rocking as when woodlands shake

Under the first urge of the wind, Whose roaring murk lightens behind. Prophetic Bard. “Be warned! I feel the world grow old, And off Olympus fades the gold The

Of the simple passionate sun; Prophecy. And the Gods wither one by one: Proud-eyed Apollo's bow is broken, And throned Zeus nods nor may be woken

But by the song of spirits seven Quiring in the midnight heaven Of a new world no more forlorn, Sith unto it a Babe is born,

That in a propped, thatched stable lies, While with darkling, reverend eyes Dusky Emperors, coifed in gold, Kneel mid the rushy mire, and hold

Caskets of rubies, urns of myrrh, Whose fumes enwrap the thurifer And coil toward the high dim rafters Where, with lutes and warbling laughters,

Clustered cherubs of rainbow feather, Fanning the fragrant air together, Flit in jubilant holy glee, And make heavenly minstrelsy

To the Child their Sun, whose glow Bathes them His cloudlets from below.... Long shall this chimed accord be heard, Yet all earth hushed at His first word:

Then shall be seen Apollo's car Blaze headlong like a banished star; And the Queen of heavenly Loves Dragged downward by her dying doves;

Vulcan, spun on a wheel, shall track The circle of the zodiac; Silver Artemis be lost, To the polar blizzards tossed;

Heaven shall curdle as with blood; The sun be swallowed in the flood; The universe be silent save For the low drone of winds that lave

The shadowed great world's ashen sides As through the rustling void she glides. Then shall there be a whisper heard Of the Grave's Secret and its Word,

Where in black silence none shall cry Save those who, dead-affrighted, spy How from the murmurous graveyards creep The figures of eternal sleep.

Last: when‘ tis light men shall behold, Beyond the crags, a flower of gold Blossoming in a golden haze, And, while they guess Zeus’ halls now blaze

Shall in the blossom's heart descry The saints of a new hierarchy!” He ceased... and in the morning sky Zeus’ anger threatened murmurously.

I sped away. The lightning's sword Stabbed on the forest. But the word Abides with me. I feel its power Most darkly in the twilit hour,

When Night's eternal shadow, cast Over earth hushed and pale and vast, Darkly foretells the soundless Night In which this orb, so green, so bright,

Now spins, and which shall compass her When on her rondure nought shall stir But snow-whorls which the wind shall roll From the Equator to the Pole....

For everlastingly there is Of the Final Something Beyond, Behind: I wis Nature of Pan. All Gods are haunted, and there clings, As hound behind fled sheep, the things

Beyond the Universe's ken: Gods haunt the Half-Gods, Half-Gods men, And Man the brute. Gods, born of Night, Feel a blacker appetite

Gape to devour them; Half-Gods dread But jealous Gods; and mere men tread Warily lest a Half-God rise And loose on them from empty skies

Amazement, thunder, stark affright, Famine and sudden War's thick night, In which loud Furies hunt the Pities Through smoke above wrecked, flaming cities.

For Pan, the Unknown God, rules all. He shall outlive the funeral, Change, and decay, of many Gods, Until he, too, lets fall his rods

Of viewless power upon that minute When Universe cowers at Infinite!