The Veery's Note 



BY ERNEST CROSBY 



When dear old Pan for good and all 



Was driven from the woods he cherished, 

 How much he took beyond recall ! 



How many mysteries paled and perished ! 

 The satyrs capered in his train, 



While dryads trod a solemn measure, 

 Casting a backward glance in vain 



On every haunt they used to treasure. 



And having thus from glade and glen 



Drawn by his pipe each sylvan wonder, 

 Pan, ere he vanished, turned again, 



And broke his pipe of reeds asunder. 

 He broke his pipe and cast away 



In heedless wrath and grief behind him 

 The notes that he alone could play, — 



Then fled where we shall never find him. 



The breezes tossed the notes about 



And dropped them in ravines and hollows. 



Many were lost beyond a doubt 



In nooks where echo never follows. 



But here and there a silent bird, 



Dejected with a nameless yearning, 



Picked up a trembling note unheard 



That set his heart and throat a-burning. 



The Nightingale, they say, found one 



Beneath a moonlit thicket lying. 

 The Lark, while soaring near the sun, 



Caught his upon the wing a-flying. 

 And so the Bobolink and Thrush 



Found ready-made their strains of magic, 

 Which make us laugh with glee, or hush 



With sympathy for all that's tragic. 



But one unearthly minor tone 



That told how Pan's great heart was broken, 

 Exiled and homesick and alone, 



With cadences of things unspoken, 



