The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/Hymn of Pan
For works with similar titles, see Hymn of Pan.
HYMN OF PAN
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824. There is a fair draft amongst the Shelley MSS. at the Bodleian. See Mr. C. D. Locock's Examination, &c, 1903, p. 25.]
IFrom the forests and highlandsWe come, we come;From the river-girt islands,Where loud waves are dumbListening to[1] my sweet pipings. 5The 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, 10Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was.Listening to my sweet pipings.
II.Liquid Peneus was flowing,And all dark Tempe layIn Pelion's shadow, outgrowing 15The light of the dying day,Speeded by my sweet pipings.The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,And the Nymphs of the woods and the waves,To the edge of the moist river-lawns,And the brink of the dewy caves, 21And all that did then attend and follow,Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,With envy of my sweet pipings.
III.I sang of the dancing stars, 25I sang of the daedal 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 Maenalus 30I pursued a maiden and clasped 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, 35At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.
- ↑ Hymn of Pan.—5, 12 Listening to] Listening B.