Classic Poem

A youthful shepherd of the neighbour wold,
Missing that morn a sheep out of his fold,
Carefully seeking round to find his stray,
Came on the instant where this damsel lay.
Anger and pity in his manly breast
Urge yet restrain his tears. Sweet maid, possess'd
(Quoth he) with lasting sleep, accept from me
His end, who ended thy hard destiny!
With that his strong dog, of no dastard kind,
Swift as the foals conceived by the wind,
He sets upon the wolf, that now with speed
Flies to the neighbour-wood; and lest a deed
So full of ruth should unrevenged be,
The shepherd follows too, so earnestly
Cheering his dog, that he ne'er turn'd again
Till the curst wolf lay strangled on the plain.
The ruin'd temple of her purer soul
The shepherd buries. All the nymphs condole
So great a loss, while on a cypress' graff
Near to her grave they hung this epitaph:

Lest loathed age might spoil the work in whom
All earth delighted, Nature took it home;
Or angry all hers else were careless deem'd,
Here did her best to have the rest esteem'd;
For fear men might not think the Fates so cross,
But by their rigour in as great a loss.
If to the grave there ever was assign'd
One like this nymph in body and in mind,
We wish her here in balm not vainly spent,
To fit this maiden with a monument.
For brass and marble were they seated here
Would fret or melt in tears to lie so near.

Now Pan may sit and tune his pipe alone
Among the wished shades, since she is gone,
Whose willing ear allur'd him more to play,
Than if to hear him should Apollo stay.
Yet happy Pan! and in thy love more blest,
Whom none but only death hath dispossess'd;
While others love as well, yet live to be
Less wrong'd by Fate than by inconstancy.
The sable mantle of the silent night
Shut-from the world the ever-joysome light;
Care fled away, and softest slumbers please
To leave the court for lowly cottages;
Wild beasts forsook their dens on woody hills,
And sleightful otters left the purling rills;
Rooks to their nests in high woods now were flung,
And with their spread wings shield their naked young;
When thieves from thickets to the cross-ways stir,
And terror frights the lonely passenger;
When nought was heard but now and then the howl
Of some vild cur, or whooping of the owl;
Pan, that the day before was far away
At shepherds' sports, return'd; and as he lay
Within the bower wherein he most delighted,
Was by a ghastly vision thus affrighted:
Heart-thrilling groans first heard he round his bower,
And then the screech-owl with her utmost power
Labour'd her loathed note, the forests bending
With winds, as Hecate had been ascending.
Hereat his curled hairs on end do rise,
And chilly drops trill o'er his staring eyes.
Fain would he call, but knew not who, nor why,
Yet getting heart at last would up and try
If any devilish hag were come abroad
With some kind mother's late deliver'd load,
A ruthless bloody sacrifice to make
To those infernal powers that by the lake
Of mighty Styx and black Cocytus dwell,
Aiding each witch's charm and mystic spell.
But as he rais'd himself within his bed,
A sudden light about his lodging spread,
And therewithal his love, all ashy pale
As evening mist from up a wat'ry vale,
Appear'd, and weakly near his bed she press'd.
A ravell'd wound distain'd her purer breast,
Breasts softer far than tusts of unwrought silk,
Whence had she liv'd to give an infant milk,
The virtue of that liquor, without odds,
Had made her babe immortal as the gods.
Pan would have spoke, but him she thus prevents
Wonder not that the troubled elements
Speak my approach; I draw no longer breath,
But am enforced to the shades of death.
My exequies are done, and yet before
I take my turn to be transported o'er
The nether floods among the shades of Dis,
To end my journey in the fields of bliss,
I come to tell thee that no human hand
Made me seek waftage on the Stygian strand;
It was an hungry wolf that did imbrue
Himself in my last blood. And now I sue
In hate to all that kind, and shepherds' good,
To be revenged on that cursed brood,
Pan vow'd, and would have clipp'd her, but she fled,
And as she came, so quickly vanished.