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

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

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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
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

James Whitcomb Riley

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

Pipes O' Pan At Zekesbury

The pipes of Pan! Not idler now are they
Than when their cunning fashioner first blew
The pith of music from them: Yet for you
And me their notes are blown in many a way
Lost in our murmurings for that old day
That fared so well, without us. - Waken to
The pipings here at hand: - The clear halloo
Of truant-voices, and the roundelay
The waters warble in the solitude
Of blooming thickets, where the robin's breast
Sends up such ecstacy o'er dale and dell,
Each tree top answers, till in all the wood
There lingers not one squirrel in his nest
Whetting his hunger on an empty shell.

James Whitcomb Riley

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

The Song Of Pan

Mad with love and laden
With immortal pain,
Pan pursued a maiden -
Pan, the god - in vain.

For when Pan had nearly
Touched her, wild to plead,
She was gone - and clearly
In her place a reed!

Long the god, unwitting,
Through the valley strayed;
Then at last, submitting,
Cut the reed, and made,

Deftly fashioned, seven
Pipes, and poured his pain
Unto earth and heaven
In a piercing strain.

So with god and poet;
Beauty lures them on,
Flies, and ere they know it
Like a wraith is gone.

Then they seek to borrow
Pleasure still from wrong,
And with smiling sorrow
Turn it to a song.

Archibald Lampman

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