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.