The Lantern

Book 431

PG

Dashing them back against the hills, kept on

With their reverberations. And these spots

The neighbouring country-side doth feign to be

Haunts of the goat-foot satyrs and the nymphs;

And tells ye there be fauns, by whose night noise

And antic revels yonder they declare

The voiceless silences are broken oft,

And tones of strings are made and wailings sweet

Which the pipe, beat by players' finger-tips,

Pours out; and far and wide the farmer-race

Begins to hear, when, shaking the garmentings

Of pine upon his half-beast head, god-Pan

With puckered lip oft runneth o'er and o'er

The open reeds,--lest flute should cease to pour

The woodland music! Other prodigies

And wonders of this ilk they love to tell,

Lest they be thought to dwell in lonely spots

And even by gods deserted. This is why

They boast of marvels in their story-tellings;

Or by some other reason are led on--

Greedy, as all mankind hath ever been,

To prattle fables into ears.

Again,

One need not wonder how it comes about

That through those places (through which eyes cannot