Classic Poem

Leaps the little river
and laughs at fetters,
Through the pebbled channel
it flutes and flutters;—
Dances down the rapids
where Autumn scatters
Gold on the waters.

Something bends the sedge
and the rushes over,
Something moves and gleams
where the grasses waver,—
Can it be a nymph
that has taken cover,
Couched by the river?—

May it be a naiad
with breasts that glimmer,
Chased of satyrs, dreading
their hoofèd clamour,
Finding strange delight
in the fears that claim her,
Joy in the tremour?

Maybe Pan himself
in the ferny hollow
Peels a wand and notches
a pipe of willow,
Perks an ear and nods
as he harks the mellow
Song of the shallow.

Who shall say 'twas only
the leaves that glinted?—
Gods of eld survive;
it is faith has fainted—
Some shall see forever
the forests haunted,
Earth all enchanted;

Some shall heed the lyres
in the winds that murmur,
Some shall see the Triton
beneath the comber,
Some shall hear the loom
of the pagan Summer
Weaving her glamour;

Hearing wings they dream:
'Tis the mounting pigeon
Bearing Venus home
to her own Ægean!
They are outcasts, strayed
from a golden region,
Drunk on old legend.