Lays and Legends of the English Lake Country / With Copious Notes

PAN ON KIRKSTONE.

Not always in fair Grecian bowers
Piped ancient Pan, to charm the hours.
Once in a thousand years he stray'd
Round earth, and all his realms survey'd.
And fairer in the world were none
Than those bright scenes he look'd upon,
Where Ulph's sweet lake her valleys woo'd,
And Windar all her isles renew'd.
For, long ere Kirkstone's rugged brow
Was worn by mortal feet as now,
Great Pan himself the Pass had trod,
And rested on the heights, a God!
Who climbs from Ulph's fair valley sees,
Still midway couched on Kirkstone-Screes,
Old as the hills, his Dog on high,
At gaze athwart the southern sky.
A rock, upon that rocky lair,
It lives from out the times that were,
When hairy Pan his soul to cheer
Look'd from those heights on Windermere.

There piped he on his reed sweet lays,
Piped his great heart's delight and praise;
While Nature, answering back each tone,
Joy'd the glad fame to find her own.
"Could I, while men at distance keep,"
Said Pan, "in yon bright waters peep,
And watch their ripples come and go,
And see what treasures hide below!
"Rivall'd is my fair Greece's store,
My own Parnassian fields and shore!
I will delight me, and behold
Myself in yon bright Mere of gold."
Like thought, his Dog sprang to yon lair
To watch the heights and sniff the air:
Like thought, on Helm a Lion frown'd,
To guard the northern Pass's bound:
And with his mate a mighty Pard
On Langdale-head, kept watchful ward:—
That great God Pan his soul might cheer,
Glass'd in the depths of Windermere.
Then down the dell from steep to steep,
With many a wild and wayward leap,
The God descending stood beside
His image on the golden tide.

His shaggy sides in full content
He sunn'd, and o'er the waters bent;
Then hugg'd himself the reeds among,
And piped his best Arcadian song.
What was it, as he knelt and drew
The wave to sip, that pierced him through?
What whispered sound, what stifled roar,
Has reached him listening on the shore?
He shivers on the old lake stones;
He leans, aghast, to catch the groans
Which come like voices uttering woe
Up all the streams, and bid him go.
Onward the looming troubles roll,
All centring towards his mighty soul.
He shriek'd! and in a moment's flight,
Stunn'd, through the thickets plunged from sight.
Plunged he, his unking'd head to hide
With goats and herds in forests wide?
Or down beneath the rocks to lie,
Shut in from leaves, and fields, and sky?
Gone was the great God out from earth!
Gone, with his pipe of tuneful mirth!
Whither, and wherefore, men may say
Who stood where Pilate mused that day.

And with that breath that crisp'd the rills,
And with that shock that smote the hills,
A moment Nature sobb'd and mourn'd,
And things of life to rocks were turned.
Stricken to stone in heart and limb,
Like all things else that followed him,
Yonder his Dog lies watching still
For Pan's lost step to climb the hill.
And those twin Pards, huge, worn with time,
Stretch still their rocky lengths sublime,
Where once they watched to guard from man
The sportive mood of great God Pan.
And craggy Helm's grey Lion rears
The mane he shook in those old years,
In changeless stone, from morn to morn
Awaiting still great Pan's return.
Could he come back again, to range
The earth, how much must all things change!
Not Nature's self, even rock and stone,
Would deign her perished God to own.
The former life all fled away—
No custom'd haunt to bid him stay—
No flower on earth, no orb on high,
No place, to know him—Pan must die.

Down with his age he went to rest;
His great heart, stricken in his breast
By tidings from that far-off shore,
Burst—and great Pan was King no more!

NOTES TO "PAN ON KIRKSTONE."

The sudden trouble and annihilation of Pan have reference to a passage in Plutarch, in his Treatise on Oracles, in which he relates that at the time of the Crucifixion, a voice was heard by certain mariners, sweeping over the Egean Sea, and crying "Pan is dead"; and the Oracles ceased. This idea, so beautifully expressing the overthrow of Paganism, and the flight of the old gods, at the inauguration of Christianity, Milton has finely elaborated in his sublime "Hymn on the Morning of the Nativity."
Many of the mountains in the North of England derive their name from some peculiarity of form: as Helm-Crag in Grasmere, Saddle-Back near Keswick, Great Gable at the head of Wast-Water, The Pillar in Ennerdale, The Hay Stacks, The Haycocks, High Stile, Steeple, &c.
There are also very marked resemblances to animate objects, well known to those familiar with the Lake District, as the Lion and the Lamb on the summit of Helm-Crag; the Astrologer, or Old woman cowering, on the same spot when seen from another quarter; the rude similitude of a female colossal statue, which gives the name of Eve's Crag to a cliff in the vale of Derwentwater. An interesting and but little known Arthurian reminiscence is found in the old legend that the recumbent effigy of that great king may be traced from some parts of the neighbourhood of Penrith in the outlines of the mountain range of which the peaks of Saddleback form the most prominent points. From the little hill of Castle Head or Castlet, the royal face of George the Third with its double chin, short nose, and receding forehead, can be quite made out in the crowning knob of Causey Pike. From under Barf, near Bassenthwaite Water, is seen the form which gives name to the Apostle's Crag. At a particular spot, the solemn shrouded figure comes out with bowed head and reverent mien, as if actually detaching itself from the rock—a vision seen by the passer by only for a few yards, when the magic ceases, and the Apostle goes back to stone. The massy forms of the Langdale Pikes, as seen from the south east, with the sweeping curve of Pavey Ark behind, are strikingly suggestive of two gigantic lions or pards, crouching side by side, with their breasts half turned towards the spectator. And a remarkable figure of a shepherd's dog, but of no great size, may be seen stretched out on a jutting crag, about half way up the precipice which overhangs the road, as the summit of Kirkstone Pass is approached from Brother's Water. It is not strictly, as stated in the foregoing verses, on the part of Kirkstone Fell called Red Screes, but some distance below it on the Patterdale side.
Among the freaks of Nature occasionally to be found in these hilly regions, is the print of the heifer's foot in Borrowdale, shown by the guides; and on a stone near Buck-Crag in Eskdale, the impressions of the foot of a man, a boy, and a dog, without any marks of tooling or instrument; and the remarkable precipices of Doe-Crag and Earn-Crag, whose fronts are polished as marble, the one 160 yards in perpendicular height, the other 120 yards.
On the top of the Screes, above Wastwater, stood for ages a very large stone called Wilson's Horse; which about a century ago fell down into the lake, when a cleft was made one hundred yards long, four feet wide, and of incredible depth.

Clyx.com