A Glimpse of Pan

I caught but a glimpse of him. Summer was here.
And I strayed from the town and its dust and heat.
And walked in a wood, while the noon was near,
Where the shadows were cool, and the atmosphere
Was misty with fragrances stirred by my feet
From surges of blossoms that billowed sheer
Of the grasses, green and sweet.

And I peered through a vista of leaning tree,
Tressed with long tangles of vines that swept
To the face of a river, that answered these
With vines in the wave like the vines in the breeze,
Till the yearning lips of the ripples crept
And kissed them, with quavering ecstasies,
And wistfully laughed and wept

And there, like a dream in swoon, I swear
I saw Pan lying, his limbs in the dew
And the shade, and his face in the dazzle and glare
Of the glad sunshine; while everywhere,
Over across, and around him blew
Filmy dragon-flies hither and there,
And little white butterflies, two and two,
In eddies of odorous air.

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. He was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and the "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and children's poetry respectively. Over his career, Riley authored approximately 1,000 poems, including "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man". His influence extended into the 20th century, and his works continued to be celebrated for their nostalgic and rural themes.

James Whitcomb Riley

His Mother.

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

Art And Poetry

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

Thomas The Pretender

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

Fool-Youngens

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

A Glimpse Of Pan.

    I caught but a glimpse of him.    Summer was here,
    And I strayed from the town and its dust and heat
    And walked in a wood, while the noon was near,
    Where the shadows were cool, and the atmosphere
    Was misty with fragrances stirred by my feet
    From surges of blossoms that billowed sheer
    O'er the grasses, green and sweet.

    And I peered through a vista of leaning trees,
    Tressed with long tangles of vines that swept
    To the face of a river, that answered these
    With vines in the wave like the vines in the breeze,
    Till the yearning lips of the ripples crept
    And kissed them, with quavering ecstacies,
    And gurgled and laughed and wept.

    And there, like a dream in a swoon, I swear
    I saw Pan lying, - his l...

James Whitcomb Riley

Pan

This Pan is but an idle god, I guess,
Since all the fair midsummer of my dreams
He loiters listlessly by woody streams,
Soaking the lush glooms up with laziness;
Or drowsing while the maiden-winds caress
Him prankishly, and powder him with gleams
Of sifted sunshine. And he ever seems
Drugged with a joy unutterable - unless
His low pipes whistle hints of it far out
Across the ripples to the dragon-fly
That like a wind-born blossom blown about,
Drops quiveringly down, as though to die -
Then lifts and wavers on, as if in doubt
Whether to fan his wings or fly without.

James Whitcomb Riley

If I Could Glimpse Him

        When in the Scorpion circles low
            The sun with fainter, dreamier light,
        And at a far-off hint of snow
            The giddy swallows take to flight,
        And droning insects sadly know
            That cooler falls the autumn night;

        When airs breathe drowsily and sweet,
            Charming the woods to colors gay,
        And distant pastures send the bleat
            Of hungry lambs at break of day,
        Old Hermes' wings grow on my feet,
            And, good-by, home!    I'm called away!

        There on the hills should I behold,
            Sitting upon an old gray stone
        That humps its back up through the mold,
            And piping in a monotone,
        Pan, as he sat in days of old,
 ...

John Charles McNeill

Favorites Of Pan

Once, long ago, before the gods
Had left this earth, by stream and forest glade,
Where the first plough upturned the clinging sods,
Or the lost shepherd strayed,

Often to the tired listener's ear
There came at noonday or beneath the stars
A sound, he knew not whence, so sweet and clear,
That all his aches and scars

And every brooded bitterness,
Fallen asunder from his soul took flight,
Like mist or darkness yielding to the press
Of an unnamed delight, -

A sudden brightness of the heart,
A magic fire drawn down from Paradise,
That rent the cloud with golden gleam apart, -
And far before his eyes

The loveliness and calm of earth
Lay like a limitless dream remote and strange,
The joy, the strife, the triumph and the mirth,
A...

Archibald Lampman

Pan In Vermont

Its forty in the shade to-day, the spouting eaves declare;
The boulders nose above the drift, the southern slopes are bare;
Hub-deep in slush Apollos car swings north along the Zod,
iac. Good luck, the Spring is back, and Pan is on the road!

His house is Gee & Tellus Sons,, so goes his jest with men,
He sold us Zeus knows what last year; hell take us in again.
Disguised behind the livery-team, fur-coated, rubber-shod,
Yet Apis from the bull-pen lows, he knows his brother God!

Now down the lines of tasseled pines the yearning whispers wake,
Pithys of old thy love behold! Come in for Hermess sake!
How long since that so-Boston boot with reeling Maenads ran!
Numen adest! Let be the rest. Pipe and we pay, O Pan.

(What though his phlox and hollyhocks ere hal...

Rudyard

A Musical Instrument

I.
What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river ?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.

II.
He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river :
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.

III.
High on the shore sate the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river ;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

IV.
He cut it short, did the grea...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning