Songs, Merry and Sad

"If I Could Glimpse Him"

     When in the Scorpion circles low
      The sun with fainter, dreamier light,
     And at a far-off hint of snow
      The giddy swallows take to flight,
     And droning insects sadly know
      That cooler falls the autumn night;

     When airs breathe drowsily and sweet,
      Charming the woods to colors gay,
     And distant pastures send the bleat
      Of hungry lambs at break of day,
     Old Hermes' wings grow on my feet,
      And, good-by, home!  I'm called away!

     There on the hills should I behold,
      Sitting upon an old gray stone
     That humps its back up through the mold,
      And piping in a monotone,
     Pan, as he sat in days of old,
      My joy would bid surprise begone!

     Dear Pan!  'Tis he that calls me out;
      He, lying in some hazel copse,
     Where lazily he turns about
      And munches each nut as it drops,
     Well pleased to see me swamped in doubt
      At sound of his much-changing stops.

     If I could glimpse him by the vine
      Where purple fox-grapes hang their store,
     I'd tell him, in his leafy shrine,
      How poets say he lives no more.
     He'd laugh, and pluck a muscadine,
      And fall to piping, as of yore!