Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.
By Robert CameronRogers1484 The Dancing Faun
T
Thou dancer of to-day,
What silent music fills thine ears,
What Bacchic lay,
That thou shouldst dance the centuries
Down their forgotten way?
Has charmed eternally
Those lithe, strong limbs, that spurn the earth?
What melody,
Unheard of men, has Father Pan
Left lingering with thee?
That round thee used to meet?
On dead lips died the drinking-song,
But wild and sweet,
What silent music urged thee on,
To its unuttered beat,
Brought thee again to sight,
Thou cam’st forth dancing, dancing still,
Into the light,
Unwearied from the murk and dusk
Of centuries of night?
The early faith is gone!
The Gods are no more seen of men,
All, all are gone,—
The shaggy forests no more shield
The Satyr and the Faun.
On many an Elian hill
The wild-grape swells, but never comes
The distant thrill
Of reedy fluted; for Pan is dead,
Broken his pipes and still.
The pagan measures ring—
Those limbs that have outdanced the years
Yet tireless spring:
How canst thou dream Pan dead when still
Thou seem’st to hear him sing!