PAN LIVETH

PAN LIVETH

THEY told me once that Pan was dead,
And so, in sooth, I thought him;
For vainly where the streamlets led
Through flowery meads I sought him---
Nor in his dewy pasture bed

Nor in the grove I caught him.

"Tell me,

" 'twas so my clamor ran

"Tell me, oh, where is Pan?"

But, once, as on my pipe I played
A requiem sad and tender,
Lo, thither came a shepherd-maid—
Full comely she and slender!
I were indeed a churlish blade
With wailings to offend 'er-
For, surely, wooing's sweeter than
A mourning over Pan!

So, presently, whiles I did scan
That shepherd-maiden pretty,
And heard her accents, I began
To pipe a cheerful ditty;
And so, betimes, forgot old Pan
Whose death had waked my pity;
So-so did Love undo the man
Who sought and pined for Pan!

He was not dead! I found him there-
The Pan that I was after!
Caught in that maiden's tangling hair,
Drunk with her song and laughter!

I doubt if there be otherwhere

A merrier god or dafter

Nay, nor a mortal kindlier than
Is this same dear old Pan!

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Beside me, as my pipe I play,
My shepherdess is lying,

While here and there her lambkins stray
As sunny hours go flying;

They look like me-those lambs-they say,
And that I'm not denying!

And for that sturdy, romping clan,
All glory be to Pan!

Pan is not dead, O sweetheart mine!
It is to hear his voices

In every note and every line
Wherein the heart rejoices!

He liveth in that sacred shrine

That Love's first, holiest choice is!
So pipe, my pipe, while still you can,
Sweet songs in praise of Pan!

DR. SAM

TO MISS GRACE KING

Down in the old French quarter,
Just out of Rampart street,
I went my way

At close of day

Unto the quaint retreat

Where lives the Voodoo Doctor

By some esteemed a sham,

Yet I'll declare there 's none elsewhere
So skilled as Doctor Sam

With the claws of a devilled crawfish,
The juice of the prickly prune,
And the quivering dew
From a yarb that grew

In the light of a midnight moon!

DR. SAM

I never should have known him
But for the colored folk
That here obtain

And ne'er in vain

That wizard's art invoke;
For when the Eye that's Evi
Would him and his'n damn,
The negro's grief gets quick relief
Of Hoodoo-Doctor Sam.

With the caul of an alligator,
The plume of an unborn loon,
And the poison wrung
From a serpent's tongue

By the light of the midnight moon!

In all neurotic ailments

I hear that he excels,
And he insures
Immediate cures

Of weird, uncanny spells;

The most unruly patient

Gets docile as a lamb

And is freed from ill by the potent skill

Of Hoodoo-Doctor Sam;

Feathers of strangled chickens,

Moss from the dank lagoon,
And plasters wet

With spider sweat

In the light of a midnight moon!

They say when nights are grewsome
And hours are, oh! so late,

Old Sam steals out

And hunts about

For charms that hoodoos hate!

That from the moaning river

And from the haunted glen

He silently brings what eerie things
Give peace to hoodooed men:-

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The tongue of a piebald 'possum,
The tooth of a senile 'coon,

The buzzard's breath that smells of death,
And the film that lies

On a lizard's eyes

In the light of a midnight moon!

WINFREDA

(A BALLAD IN THE ANGLO-SAXON TONGUE)

WHEN to the dreary greenwood gloam
Winfreda's husband strode that day,
The fair Winfreda bode at home
To toil the weary time away;

"While thou are gone to hunt," said she,
"I'll brew a goodly sop for thee."

Lo, from a further, gloomy wood,
A hungry wolf all bristling hied
And on the cottage threshold stood

And saw the dame at work inside;
And, as he saw the pleasing sight,
He licked his fangs so sharp and white.

Now when Winfreda saw the beast,
Straight at the grinning wolf she ran,
And, not affrighted in the least,

She hit him with her cooking pan, And as she thwacked him on the head"Scat! scat!" the fair Winfreda said.

The hills gave answer to their din-
The brook in fear beheld the sight,
And all that bloody field within

Wore token of Winfreda's might.
The wolf was very loath to stay-
But, oh! he could not get away.

LYMAN, FREDERICK, AND JIM

Winfreda swept him o'er the wold

And choked him till his gums were blue, And till, beneath her iron hold,

His tongue hung out a yard or two, And with his hair the riven ground Was strewn for many leagues around.

They fought a weary time that day,
And seas of purple blood were shed,
Till by Winfreda's cunning lay

That awful wolf all limp and dead;
Winfreda saw him reel and drop-
Then back she went to brewing sop.

So when the husband came at night
From bootless chase, cold, gaunt, and grim,
Great was that Saxon lord's delight

To find the sop dished up for him;

And as he ate, Winfreda told

How she had laid the wolf out cold.

The good Winfreda of those days
Is only "pretty Birdie" now-
Sickly her soul and weak her ways—
And she, to whom we Saxons bow,
Leaps on a bench and screams with fright
If but a mouse creeps into sight.

LYMAN, FREDERICK, AND JIM

(FOR THE FELLOWSHIP CLUB)

LYMAN and Frederick and Jim, one day,
Set out in a great big ship-

Steamed to the ocean adown the bay

Out of a New York slip.

"Where are you going and what is your game?? The people asked those three.

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