Classic Poem

Cease to complain of what the Fates decree,
Whether shall Death have carried off or (worse)
Another, thy heart's treasure: bitter Styx
Hath overflowed the dales of Arcady,
And Cares have risen to the realms above.
By Pan and Boreas was a Dryad wooed,
Pitys her name, her haunt the grove and wild:
Boreas she fled from, upon Pan she gazed
With a sly fondness, yet accusing him
Of fickle mind; and this was her reproof.
‘Ah why do men, or Gods who ought to see
More clearly, think that bonds will bind for ever!
Often have stormy seas borne safely home
A ship to perish in its port at last;
Even they themselves, in other things unchanged,
Are mutable in love; even he who rules
Olympus hath been lighter than his clouds.
Alas! uncertain is the lover race,
All of it; worst are they who sing the best,
And thou, Pan, worse than all.
By what deceit
Beguiledst thou the Goddess of the night?
O wary shepherd of the snow-white flock!
Ay, thy reeds crackled with thy scorching flames
And burst with sobs and groans . . the snow-white flock
Was safe, the love-sick swain kept sharp look there.
Wonderest thou such report should reach my ear?
And widenest thou thine eyes, half-ready now
To swear it all away, and to conceal
The fountain of Selinos. So! thou knowest
Nothing about that shallow brook, those herbs
It waves in running, nothing of the stones
Smooth as the pavement of a temple-floor,
And how the headstrong leader of the flock
Broke loose from thy left-hand, and in pursuit
How falledst thou, and how thy knee was bound
With ivy lest white hairs betray the gash.
Denyest thou that by thy own accord
Cynthia whould share thy flock and take her choice?
Denyest thou damping and sprinkling o'er
With dust, and shutting up within a cave
Far out of sight, the better breed? the worse
Displayed upon the bank below, well washt,
Their puffy fleeches glittering in the sun.
Shame! to defraud with gifts, and such as these!’
Pan, blushing thro both ears as ne'er before,
Cried ‘Who drag'd back these fables from the past?
Juster and happier hadst thou been to scorn
The false and fugitive. With hoarse uproar
I heard thy Boreas bray his song uncouth,
And oldest goats ran from it in affright.
Thee, too beloved Pitys, then I saw
Averse: couldst ever thou believe his speech,
His, the most bitter foe to me and mine.
From Cynthia never fell such hard rebuke.
Different from thee, she pities them who mourn;
Whether beneath straw roof or lofty tower,
She sits by the bedside and silently
Watches, and soothes the wakeful til they sleep.
I wooed not Cynthia; me she wooed: not all
Please her; she hates the rude, she cheers the gay,
She shrouds her face when Boreas ventures near.
Above all other birds the nightingale
She loves; she loves the poplar of the Po
Trembling and whispering; she descends among
The boxtrees on Cytoros; night by night
You find her at the olive: it is she
Who makes the berries of the mountain-ash
Bright at her touch: the glassy founts, the fanes
Hoary with age, the sea when Hesper comes
To Tethys, and when liquid voices rise
Above the shore . . but Boreas . . no, not she.’
Then Pitys, with a smile.
‘Ha! what a voice!
My lover Boreas could not roar his name
More harshly. Come now, cunning lightfoot! say
How was it thou couldst take the Goddess in,
And with a charge so moderate on thy fold?’
‘Again, O Pitys, wouldst thou torture me?
Gifts not as lover but as loved I gave;
I gave her what she askt: had she askt more
I would have given it; 'twas but half the flock:
Therefor 'twas separated in two parts;
The fatter one, of bolder brow, shone out
In whiteness, but its wool was like goat-hair,
And loud its bleating for more plenteous grass;
Strong too its smell: my Goddess heeded not
The smell or bleat, but took the weightier fleece.
Why shakest thou thy head, incredulous?
Why should I urge the truth on unbelief?
Or why so fondly sue to scorn and hate?
Pitys! a time there was when I was heard
With one long smile, and when the softest hand
Stroked down unconsciously the lynx-skin gift
of Bacchus on my lap, and blushes rose
If somewhat, by some chance, it was removed.
In silence or in speech I then could please,
I then at times could turn my face aside,
Forgetting that my awkward hand was placed
Just where thy knees were bending for a seat:
Then could I at another hour look up
At the sun's parting ray, and draw the breath
Of fresher herbs, while clouds took living forms
Throwing their meshes o'er the azure deep,
And while thy gaze was on the flight of crows
Hoarse overhead, winging their beaten way
At regular and wonted intervals.
Then, never doubting my sworn love, anew
Thou badest me swear it: pleasure lay secure
On its full golden sheaf.
Now, alas, now
What comfort brings me on the barren shore
Pale oleaster, or gay citisus
That hides the cavern, or pellucid vein
Of wandering vine, or broom that once betray'd
The weak twin fawns! how could I join the glee
Of babbling brook, or bear the lull of grove,
Or mind the dazzling vapor from the grass,
Unless my Pitys told me, and took up
The faltering reed or interrupted song?’
Thus he, enclosing with his arm hirsute
Her neck, and stroking slow her auburn hair.
‘Up with the pipe’ said she ‘O Pan! and since
It seems so pleasant to recall old times,
Run over those we both enjoy'd alike,
And I will sing of Boreas, whom I hate.
He boasts of oaks uprooted by his blast,
Of heaven itself his hailstones have disturb'd,
Of thy peculiar heritage afire,
And how thy loftiest woods bow'd down beneath
His furious pennons black with bale and dread.
He boasts of ships submerged, and waves up-piled
High as Olympus, and the trident torn
From Jove's own brother: worst of all, he boasts
How often he deluded with his voice,
Under the rocks of Ismaros, that true
And hapless lover when his eyes sought sleep,
And made his wandering mind believe the sound
Rose from the Manes at his wife recall'd.
His pleasure is to drive from lids fresh-closed
Fond dreams away, and draw false forms about,
And where he finds one terror to bring more.
Can such a lover ever be beloved?’
Boreas heard all: he stood upon the cliff
Before, now crept he into the near brake;
Rage seiz'd him; swinging a huge rock around
And, shaking with one stamp the mountain-head,
Hurld it . . and cried
‘Is Boreas so contemn'd?’
It smote the Dryad, sprinkling with her blood
The tree they sat beneath: there faithful Pan
Mused often, often call'd aloud the name
Of Pitys, and wiped off tear after tear
From the hoarse pipe, then threw it wildly by,
And never from that day wore other wreath
Than off the pine-tree darkened with her gore.