The Veery’s Note
BY ERNEST CROSBY
When dear old Fan for good and all
Was driven from the woods he cherished, How much he took beyond recall!
How many mysteries paled and perished! The satyrs tapered in his train,
While dryads trod a solemn measure, Casting a backward glance in vain
On every haunt they used to treasure.
And having thus from glade and glen Drawn by his pipe each sylvan wonder, Pan, ere he vanished. turned again, And broke his pipe of reeds asunder‘ He broke his pipe and cast away In licedless wrath and grief behind him The notes that he alone could play,— Then fled where we shall never find him.
The breezes tossed the notes about
And dropped them in ravines and hollows. Nlany were lost beyond a doubt
In nooks where echo never follows. But here and there a silent bird,
Dejected with a nameless yearning, Picked up a trembling note unheard
That set his heart and throat aeburning‘
The Nightingale, they say, found one Beneath a moonlit thicket lying
The Lark, while soaring near the sun, Caught his upon the wing a»flying.
And so the Bobolink and Thrush Found ready-made their strains of magic.
Which make us laugh with glee. or hush With sympathy for all that's tragic.
But one uneartth minor tone
That told how Pan's great heart was broken, Exiled and homesick and alone,
With cadences of things unspoken.
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