Pan in the Catskills

They say that he is dead, and now no more The reedy syrinx sounds among the hills, When the long summer heat is on the land. But I have heard the Catskill thrushes sing, And therefore am incredulous of death, Of pain and sorrow and mortality.

In these blue canyons, deep with hemlock shade, In solitudes of twilight or of dawn, I have been rapt away from time and care By the enchantment of a golden strain As pure as ever pierced the Thracian wild, Filling the listener with a mute surmise.

At evening and at morning I have gone Down the cool trail between the beech-tree boles, And heard the haunting music of the wood Ring through the silence of the dark ravine, Flooding the earth with beauty and with joy And all the ardors of creation old.

And then within my pagan heart awoke Remembrance of far-off and fabled years In the untarnished sunrise of the world, When clear-eyed Hellas in her rapture heard A slow mysterious piping wild and keen Thrill through her vales, and whispered, "It is Pan!"