Chapter III (4)

Speak to me, comely Faun, as you would speak To tree, or zephyr, or untrodden grass. From end to end of this well-shaded alley, When near you, with the handsome Lautrec, passed The soft-eyed Marguerite, the Bearnaise Queen, Have you, O Greek, O mocker of old days, Have you not sometimes with that oblique eye Winked at the Farnese Hercules?--Alone, In cave as it were of foliage green and moist, Have you, O Faun, considerately turned From side to side when counsel-seekers came, And now advised as shepherd; now as satyr? Have you sometimes upon this very bench Seen at mid-day, Vincent de Paul instilling Grace into Gondi?--Have you ever thrown That searching glance on Louis with Fontange, On Anne with Buckingham; and did they not Start, with flushed cheeks, to hear your laugh ring forth From corner of the wood?--Was your advice As to the thyrsis or the ivy asked, When, the grand ballet of fantastic form, God Phoebus, or god Pan, and all his court Turned the fair head of the fair Montespan, Calling her Amaryllis?--La Fontaine, Flying the courtiers' ears of stone, came he, Tears in his eyelids, to reveal to you The sorrows of his Nymphs of Vaux?--What said Boileau to you, to you, O lettered Faun, Who once with Virgil, in the Eclogue, held That charming dialogue, and deftly made-- Couched on the turf--the heavy spondee dance To the light dactyl's step?--Say, have you seen Young beauties sporting on the sward: Chevreuse Of the swimming eyes, Thiange of airs superb? Have they sometimes, in rosy-tinted group, Girt you so fondly round, that all at once A straggling sunbeam on a fluttering bosom Marked your lascivious profile?--Has your tree Received beneath the quiet of its shade Pale Mazarin's scarlet winding sheet?--Have you Been honoured with a sight of Moliere In dreamy mood? Has he perchance at times, Dropping at random a melodious verse, In tone familiar--as is the wont 'Twixt demi-gods--addressed you?--When at eve Homeward hereby the thinker went, has he Who--seeing souls all naked--could not fear Your nudity, in his enquiring mind Confronted you with Man? And did he deem You, spectral cynic, the less sad, less cold, Less wicked, less ironical--comparing Your laugh in marble with our human laugh?"

Under the thickly tangled branches, thus Did I speak to him; he no answer gave-- Not even a murmur. On the pedestal Leaning, I listened; but the past stirred not. Dumb to my words and to my pity deaf, The Satyr, motionless, was vaguely blanched By the wan glimmer of the dying day. To see him there, sinister, half drawn out From his dark framing, and by damp discoloured, Brought to one's mind the handle of a sword In torso chiselled--an old rusty sword, Left for long years neglected in its sheath.

I shook my head, and moved myself away. Then, from the copses, from the dried up boughs Pendent above him, from secret caves Hid in the wood, methought a ghostly voice Came forth and woke an echo in my soul, As in the hollow of an amphora.

"Imprudent poet," thus it seemed to say, "What dost thou here? Leave the forsaken Fauns In peace beneath their trees! Dost thou not know, Poet, that ever it is impious deemed, In desert spots where drowsy shades repose-- Though love itself might prompt thee--to shake down The moss that hangs from ruined centuries, And, with the vain noise of thine ill-timed words, To mar the recollections of the dead?"

Then to the gardens all enwrapped in mist I hurried, dreaming of the vanished days. And still the tree-tops were with mystery rife; And still, behind me--hieroglyph obscure Of antique alphabet--the lonely Faun Held to his laughter, through the falling night.

I went my way; but yet--in saddened spirit Pondering on all that had my vision crossed, Floating in air or scattered under foot, Confused and blent, beauty and spring and morn, Leaves of old summers, fair ones of old time-- Through all, at distance would my fancy see, In the woods, statues; shadows in the past!

CHARADES.