Cicalas! how the name enchants me back To the grey olives and the dust-white track! Was there a story then?--I have forgot, Or else by chance my Umbrians told it not. {184} THE POET Lover of music, you at least should know That these were men in ages long ago,-- Ere music was,--and then the Muses came, And love of song took hold on them like flame. THE LADY Yes, I remember now the voice that speaks-- Most living still of all the deathless Greeks-- Yet tell me--how they died divinely mad, And of the Muses what reward they had. THE POET They are reborn on earth, and from the first They know not sleep, they hunger not nor thirst Summer with glad Cicala's song they fill, Then die, and go to haunt the Muses' Hill. THE LADY They are reborn indeed! and rightly you The far-heard echo of their music knew! Pray now to Pan, since you too, it would seem, Were there with Phaedrus, by Ilissus' stream. THE POET Beloved Pan, and all ye gods whose grace For ever haunts our short life's resting-place, Outward and inward make me one true whole, And grant me beauty in the inmost soul! {185} THE LADY And thou, O Night, O starry Queen of Air, Remember not my blind and faithless prayer! Let me too live, let me too sing again, Since Beauty wanders still the ways of men. {186} _The Faun_ Yesterday I thought to roam Idly through the fields of home, And I came at morning's end To our brook's familiar bend. There I raised my eyes, and there, Shining through an ampler air, Folded in by hills of blue Such as Wessex never knew, Changed as in a waking dream Flowed the well-remembered stream. Now a line of wattled pale Fenced the downland from the vale, Now the sedge was set with reeds Fitter for Arcadian meads, And where I was wont to find Only things of timid kind, Now the Genius of the pool Mocked me from his corner cool. Eyes he had with malice quick, Tufted hair and ears a-prick, And, above a tiny chin, Lips with laughter wide a-grin. {187} Therewithal a shaggy flank In the crystal clear he sank, And beneath the unruffled tide A little pair of hooves I spied. Yet though plainly there he stood, Creature of the wave and wood, Under his satyric grace Something manlike I could trace, And the eyes that mocked me there Like a gleam of memory were. "So," said I at last to him, Frowning from the river's brim, "This is where you come to play, Heedless of the time of day." "Nay," replied the youthful god, Leaning on the flowery sod, "Here there are no clocks, and so Time can neither come nor go." "Little goat," said I, "you're late, And your dinner will not wait: If to-day you wish to eat, Trust me, you must find your feet." "Father," said the little goat, "Do you know that I can float? {188}