Look as a well-grown, stately-headed buck,
But lately by the woodman's arrow struck,
Runs gadding o'er the lawns, or nimbly strays
Among the cumbrous brakes a thousand ways,
Now through the high-wood scours, then by the brooks,
On every hillside, and each vale he looks,
If 'mongst their store of simples may be found
An hero to draw and heal his smarting wound,
But when he long hath sought, and all in vain,
Steals to the covert closely back again,
Where round engirt with fern more highly sprung,
Strives to appease the raging with his tongue,
And from the speckled herd absents him till
He be recover'd somewhat of his ill:
So wounded Pan turns in his restless bed,
But finding thence all ease abandoned,
He rose, and through the wood distracted runs:
Yet carries with him what in vain he shuns.
Now he exclaim'd on Fate, and wish'd he ne'er
Had mortal lov'd, or that he mortal were.
And sitting lastly on an oak's bare trunk,
Where rain in winter stood long time unsunk,
His plaints he 'gan renew, but then the light
That through the boughs flew from the Queen of Night,
As giving him occasion to repine,
Bewray'd an elm embraced by a vine,
Clipping so strictly that they seem'd to be
One in their growth, one shade, one fruit, one tree,
Her boughs his arms, his leaves so mix'd with hers,
That with no wind he mov'd but straight she stirs,
As showing all should be, whom love combin'd:
In motion one, and only two in kind.
This more afflicts him while he thinketh most
Not on his loss, but on the substance lost.
O hapless Pan, had there but been one by
To tell thee, though as poor a swain as I,
Though, whether casual means or death do move,
“We part not without grief things held with love:
Yet in their loss some comfort may be got
If we do mind the time we had them not.”
This might have lessen'd somewhat of thy pain,
Or made thee love as thou might'st lose again.
If thou the best of women didst forego,
Weigh if thou found'st her, or didst make her so;
If she were found so, know there's more than one;
If made, the workman lives, though she be gone.
Should from mine eyes the light be ta'en away,
Yet night her pleasures hath as well as day;
And my desires to Heaven yield less offence,
Since blindness is a part of innocence.
So though thy love sleep in eternal night,
Yet there's in loneness somewhat may delight.
Instead of dalliance, partnership in woes
It wants, the care to keep, and fear to lose.
For jealousies and fortune's baser pelf,
He rest enjoys that well enjoys himself.
Had some one told thee thus, or thou bethought thee.
Of inward help, thy sorrow had not brought thee
To weigh misfortune by another's good:
Nor leave thy seat to range about the wood.
Stay where thou art, turn where thou wert before,
Light yields small comfort, nor hath darkness more.
A woody hill there stood, at whose low feet
Two goodly streams in one broad channel meet,
Whose fretful waves beating against the hill,
Did all the bottom with soft mutt'rings fill.
Here in a nook made by another mount,
(Whose stately oaks are in no less account
For height or spreading, than the proudest be
That from Oëta look on Thessaly,)
Rudely o'erhung there is a vaulted cave,
That in the day as sullen shadows gave,
As evening to the woods. An uncouth place,
(Where hags and goblins might retire a space,)
And hated now of shepherds, since there lies
The corpse of one, less loving deities
Than we affected him, that never lent
His hand to ought but to our detriment.
A man that only liv'd to live no more,
And died still to be dying; whose chief store
Of virtue was, his hate did not pursue her,
Because he only heard of her, not knew her;
That knew no good, but only that his sight
Saw everything had still his opposite;
And ever this his apprehension caught,
That what he did was best, the other naught;
That always lov'd the man that never lov'd;
And hated him whose hate no death had mov'd;
That (politic) at fitting time and season
Could hate the traitor, and yet love the treason;
That many a woful heart (ere his decease)
In pieces tore to purchase his own peace;
Who never gave his alms but in this fashion,
To salve his credit more than for salvation;
Who on the names of good men ever fed,
And (most accursed) sold the poor for bread.
Right like the pitch-tree, from whose any limb
Comes never twig, shall be the seed of him.
The Muses scorn'd by him, laugh at his fame,
And never will vouchsafe to speak his name.
Let no man for his loss one tear let fall,
But perish with him his memorial!
Into this cave the god of shepherds went;
The trees in groans, the rocks in tears lament
His fatal chance: the brooks that whilom leapt
To hear him play while his fair mistress slept,
Now left their eddies and such wanton moods,
And with loud clamours fill'd the neighb'ring woods.
There spent he most of night; but when the day
Drew from the earth her pitchy veil away,
When all the flow'ry plains with carols rung
That by the mounting lark were shrilly sung,
When dusky mists rose from the crystal floods,
And darkness nowhere reign'd but in the woods,
Pan left the cave, and now intends to find
The sacred place where lay his love enshrin'd:
A plot of earth, in whose chill arms was laid
As much perfection as had ever maid;
If curious Nature had but taken care
To make more lasting what she made so fair.