Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PAN, by FERNAND MAZADE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PAN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Pan, as he came toward pheidippides
Last Line: Pan whirled of a sudden and cut mad capers.
Subject(s): Athens, Greece; Goddesses & Gods; Mythology; Mythology - Classical; Pan (mythology)


Pan, as he came toward Pheidippides,
Was childlike and solemn, abashed and at ease.
Graceful and gross as a cub in the wood,
He shied from a naught, of a nothing made pelf.
He seemed to know all, yet he knew not himself.
He charmed. He amused. And yet he brought fears.

It was the hour when waters send the mist
That the sun in its setting colors amethyst,
When from Parthenon hill on hearkening ears
Fall murmurs of bushes and quieting flocks.
You think you see quiver the peaks of the rocks.
The air smelled of cucumber, myrtle, and musk.
Tegea far off was a circle of dusk;
Here and there, at a wall-space, a lamp glowed through.
The moon swam forth on a billow of blue.

Panting and parched from his long galloping,
Pheidippides drank the clear thread of a spring
When sudden resounded the voice of the god:
"In Athens, why is there no altar to me?
Do your clever countrymen all fail to see
I give their fruitfulness to the fields,
I guard the herds and the vine-yields,
I people the waters with carp and with cod.
In the midst of the flowers I send forth the thrush."
And, his forked feet posed on a berry bush
And a finger deep in his black blown beard,
The god stood forward to be revered.
And Pheidippides, on hearing the word
Admirable and burlesque, eloquent and absurb,
To the depths of his being was strangely stirred.

"I am beautiful. Behold me," the great Pan purred.
"The brow of Demeter, the brow of Zeus, a thundercloud adorns;
My brow is glorious, charming: I have horns.
The great eyes of Artemis do no more than shine;
Look at me; my eyes are troubled, troubled, and they shrine—
Dimming the reflection of brooklets and the sky—
The dark of the marshes where the heavens die
And the melting languors that vague grottoes hold.
Your Pallas Athene wears a gown of gold.
Ares comes only at the trumpet's peal.
I run without music, nude from head to heel.
No god of Hellas equals me; at other gods I laugh:
For I've a goat's foot and the muzzle of a calf."
And proudly Pan poured from his swelling throat
The bellow of a bull and the bleating of a goat.
Pheidippides rippled into merry laughter.

Sternly the god's full gaze followed after;
He growled: "Wherefore the suspicious gaiety?
Do you take me for a blockhead? Respect is due to me.
You shall behold, rash creature, the prop of my repute."
Then, seizing an olive tree heavy with fruit,
The immortal tore it from the chalky ground
And over his proud head swung it around.

And although Pheidippides, flung at his feet,
Desperately returned him homage meet
Still Pan shook the tree whose olive-eyes
Scattered in the darkness chasing butterflies.

"I'm a terrible god as well as a beauty.
As one smothers a torch that's outlasted its duty
I could bring this huge mountain down on your spine.
No idle companions escort me to dine,
But here is my flute; its call would suffice
To bring leaping out from the woods in a trice
The lion, the wolf's and the panther's spawn.
Beneath your fleet sandals I could make the earth yawn."
And Pan smote the ground, which suddenly split.

Pheidippides screamed. At the edge of the pit
The immortal laughed till his chin-whiskers shook.
For a moment, across the wilds and the waste,
Purled the gentle flow of a crystal brook.

And before mazed Pheidippides, Pan replaced
The olive tree, from which the fruit had poured.
"Take root again. Come! I want you restored:
Poor tree! Your pardon for handling you roughly."
Then breathing on his flute, like an eager child, bluffly,
Over the damp grass where glow-worms lit dim tapers,
Pan whirled of a sudden and cut mad capers.





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