Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Percy Bysshe Shelley. 17921822605. Hymn of Pan
FROM the forests and highlands | |
We come, we come; | |
From the river-girt islands, | |
Where loud waves are dumb, | |
Listening to my sweet pipings. | 5 |
The wind in the reeds and the rushes, | |
The bees on the bells of thyme, | |
The birds on the myrtle bushes, | |
The cicale above in the lime, | |
And the lizards below in the grass, | 10 |
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was, | |
Listening to my sweet pipings. | |
Liquid Peneus was flowing, | |
And all dark Tempe lay | |
In Pelion’s shadow, outgrowing | 15 |
The light of the dying day, | |
Speeded by my sweet pipings. | |
The Sileni and Sylvans and Fauns, | |
And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, | |
To the edge of the moist river-lawns, | 20 |
And the brink of the dewy caves, | |
And all that did then attend and follow, | |
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo, | |
With envy of my sweet pipings. | |
I sang of the dancing stars, | 25 |
I sang of the dædal earth, | |
And of heaven, and the giant wars, | |
And love, and death, and birth. | |
And then I changed my pipings— | |
Singing how down the vale of Mænalus | 30 |
I pursued a maiden, and clasp’d a reed: | |
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus! | |
It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed. | |
All wept—as I think both ye now would, | |
If envy or age had not frozen your blood— | 35 |
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings. |