Pan im Gebüsch
a picture by Hans Thoma
What pip'st thou in the twilit thicket, Pan?
What dost thou here in this our day of June,
Thou that, long shut from sight of sun and moon,
Deforcing death's immitigable ban,
Revisitest the haunts and hours of man
And in our woodlands, where the ringdoves croon
Songs sad as life, re-trillst the olden tune
The blue bird fluted when the world began?
Back to thy grave, gray ghost, in Paxos Isle!
There, mid the moan of the Ionian main,
Under the sapphires of the Grecian sky,
All lapt and rounded with the warm sun's smile,
There dream thy dreams of sunny days gone by,
Far from our sad wan world of strife and pain.
a picture by Hans Thoma
What pip'st thou in the twilit thicket, Pan?
What dost thou here in this our day of June,
Thou that, long shut from sight of sun and moon,
Deforcing death's immitigable ban,
Revisitest the haunts and hours of man
And in our woodlands, where the ringdoves croon
Songs sad as life, re-trillst the olden tune
The blue bird fluted when the world began?
Back to thy grave, gray ghost, in Paxos Isle!
There, mid the moan of the Ionian main,
Under the sapphires of the Grecian sky,
All lapt and rounded with the warm sun's smile,
There dream thy dreams of sunny days gone by,
Far from our sad wan world of strife and pain.