The mist lay on the river as I roamed the water's edge,
And a little wind of twilight murmured ghostly in the sedge--
A wayward wind of evening shook the reeds to melody,
And a voice came echoing softly down the long dead years to me. "Not for fear of thee I fled thee, not for fear my winged feet ran
Down the dewy slops of Arcadie, from thy desire, O Pan:
For love of thee it was--I knew, fulfilled, thy love must die--
Thou wast a god, and naught but one of a myriad nymphs was I. "The love of gods is golden, great and golden--for a day,
But my heart recked of the ruin with the rapture passed away;
The love of gods is fickle--fair and fugitive as Spring,
And my heart divined the aftermath, the sad remembering. "So to keep thy love I fled it (hear me whisper, hear me sigh--
'Tis the lonely wind of twilight wakes regret and memory)--
Fled the wonder of thy passion and the bliss of thine embrace
For the likeness of a trembling reed beside the water's face. "I loved thee; I denied thee. To the river thou didst steal,
Haply to find a balm to ease the longing thou didst feel;
Didst take me, and didst fashion, and thy lips on me didst lay
Till the reed sobbed forth in music all the maid had feared to say. "The flame of thy desire and my love all unpossessed
Met in melody and mingled. O'er the river's rippling breast
Passing sweet the echoes floated, and the green earth leapt to hear
The piping of the great god Pan in the spring-time of the year." * * * * * The mist lay on the river as I roamed the water's edge,
And a little wind of twilight murmured ghostly in the sedge--
A wayward wind of evening shook the reeds to melody,
And a voice came echoing softly down the long dead years to me.