The Faun

A Fragment I WILL go out to grass with that old King, For I am weary of clothes and cooks. I long to lie along the banks of brooks, And watch the boughs above me sway and swing. Come, I will pluck off custom’s livery, Nor longer be a lackey to old Time, Time shall serve me, and at my feet shall fling The spoil of listless minutes. I shall climb The wild trees for my food, and run Through dale and upland as the fox runs free, Laugh for cool joy and sleep i’ the warm sun, And men will call me mad, like that old King. For I am woodland-natured, and have made Dryads my bedfellows, And I have played With the sleek Naiads in the splash of the pools And made a mock of gowned and trousered fools. Helen, none knows Better than thou how like a Faun I strayed. And I am half Faun now, and my heart goes Out to the forest and the crack of twigs, The drip of wet leaves and the low soft laughter Of brooks that chuckle o’er old mossy jests And say them over to themselves, the nests Of squirrels and the holes the chipmunk digs, Where through the branches the slant rays Dapple with sunlight the leaf-matted ground, And the wind comes with blown vestures rustling after, And through the woven lattice of crisp sound A bird’s song lightens like a maiden’s face. O wildwood Helen, let them strive and fret, Those goggled men with their dissecting-knives! Let them in charnel-houses pass their lives And seek in death life’s secret! And let Those hard-faced worldlings prematurely old Gnaw their thin lips with vain desire to get Portia’s fair fame or Lesbia’s carcanet, Or crown of Cæsar or Catullus, Apicius’ lampreys or Crassus’ gold! For these consider many things—but yet By land or sea They shall not find the way to Arcady, The old home of the awful heart-dear Mother, Whereto child-dreams and long rememberings lull Far from the cares that overlay and smother The memories of old woodland out-door mirth In the dim first life-burst centuries ago, The sense of the freedom and nearness of Earth— Nay, this they shall not know; For who goes thither, Leaves all the cark and clutch of his soul behind, The doves denied and the serpents shrined, The hates that wax and the hopes that wither; Nor does he journey, seeking where it be, But wakes and finds himself in Arcady. Hist! there ’s a stir in the brush. Was it a face through the leaves? Back of the laurels a skurry and rush Hillward, then silence except for the thrush That throws one song from the dark of the bush And is gone; and I plunge in the wood, and the swift soul cleaves Through the swirl and the flow of the leaves, As a swimmer stands with his white limbs bare to the sun For the space that a breath is held, and drops in the sea; And the undulant woodland folds round me, intimate, fluctuant, free, Like the clasp and the cling of the waters, and the reach and the effort is done,— There is only the glory of living, exultant to be. O goodly damp smell of the ground! O rough sweet bark of the trees! O clear sharp cracklings of sound! O life that ’s a-thrill and a-bound With the vigor of boyhood and morning, and the noontide’s rapture of ease! Was there ever a weary heart in the world? A lag in the body’s urge or a flag of the spirit’s wings? Did a man’s heart ever break For a lost hope’s sake? For here there is lilt in the quiet and calm in the quiver of things. Ay, this old oak, gray-grown and knurled, Solemn and sturdy and big, Is as young of heart, as alert and elate in his rest, As the nuthatch there that clings to the tip of the twig And scolds at the wind that buffets too rudely its nest. Oh, what is it breathes in the air? Oh, what is it touches my cheek? There ’s a sense of a presence that lurks in the branches. But where? Is it far, is it far to seek?