I SHALL make offering in a new basket of marsh-grass
Curved like a conch-shell, sharp with salt echoes,
With two long handles like looped arms.
Untamed things shall I bring to the god of gardens,
Plum-blossom, sweet-olive and thyme,
Tang of small figs, gone wild in deserted gardens,
Most subtle of trees as the serpent is subtlest of beasts,
Slouched on the sun-soaked walls. . . .
I shall lay them under the weary, appraising eyes,
The cynical, musical fingers
That rest on the goat-thighs.
Let me give him, O Pan,
All in the way of love—
The new, keen edge of difference,
The wonder of being together,
And the wild taste of immemorial marsh-grass.
But in the intervals,
When the lover is gone and only the comrade remains,
Pan, have mercy!
Teach me to talk like a man!