A YOUNG PAN'S PRAYER

And you feel the urging man-breath slip

Through fibre and flake,
Bidding you wake
To the strange new being for beauty's sake,
I pray there be

Returned to me
The strength of the hills and the strength of the sea.

O river reed,
In whom the need
Of the journeying river once was freed,

As of old your will
Was the water's will,
To quiver and call or sleep and be still,

So now anew
I breathe in you

The ardour no alchemy can subdue,
And add the dream,—
The immortal gleam
That never yet fell on meadow or stream.

I breathe and blow

Till I find new stops in your earthly scope.

The pleading strain
Of pathos and pain,
The diminished chord and the lost refrain;
The piercing sigh,

The joyous cry,
The sense of what shall be bye and bye;

The grief untold
Out of man's heart old,
Which endures that another may still be bold;

The wiser will
That foregoes self-will
And aspires to truth beyond trammel or ill;

Ambition unsure,
And the splendid lure

Of whim in his harlequin vestiture;
And the reach of sound
Into thought's profound;
All these I add to your power earth-bound;

But most, the awe

And know 'tis their master they have heard.

And the lowly reed,
Whose only need
Was to sigh with the wind in the river weed,
Shall be heard as far

As from star to star,
Where Algol answers to Algebar.

For the soul must trace
Her wondrous race
By a seventh sense on the charts of space,

Till she come at last,
Through the vague and vast,
To her own heart's haven fixed and fast.

O pipes of Pan,
Whose music ran

Through the world ere ever my age began,
When I set my lip
To your woodland lip,
I pray some draft of your virtue slip

From each mellow throat,

To catch what your whispered messages mean.

I shall hear, and heed
The voice of the reed,
And be glad of my kinfolk's word, indeed.
I shall hearken and heart

Your untroubled cheer
From the earth's deep heart, serene and clear.

Blow cold and shrill,
As the wind from the hill,
I yet shall follow to learn your will;
Blow soft and warm,

As an April storm,
I shall listen and feel my soul take form.

Blow glad and strong,
As the grosbeak's song,
And I mount with you over hurt and wrong;

Blow little and thin,
As the cricket's din;
But my door is wide, and I bid them in.

Blow, blow till there be
Inbreathed in me

All the warm radiant bright world through.

Blow me the tune
Of the ripe red moon,
I shall sleep like a child by the roadside soon;
And the tune of the sun;

When our piping is done,
Lo, others shall finish what we have begun.

For the spell we cast
Shall prevail at last,—
When fault is forgotten and failure past,—

Prevail and restore
To earth once more
The lost enchantment, the wonder-lore.

And I must attain
To the road again,

With the wandering dust and the wandering rain,—
A sojourner too
My way pursue,
Who am spirit and substance, even as you.

Then give me the slow