Hymn To Pan

Thrill with lissome lust of the light

Oh man! My man!

Come careering out of the night

Of Pan! Io Pan

Io Pan! Io Pan! Come over the sea

From Sicily and from Arcady!

Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards

And nymphs and styrs for thy guards

On a milk-white ass, come over the sea

To me, to me

Come with Apollo in bridal dress

(Spheperdess and pythoness)

Come with Artemis, silken shod

And wash thy white thigh, beautiful God

In the moon, of the woods, on the marble mount

The dimpled dawn of of the amber fount!

Dip the purple of passionate prayer

In the crimson shrine, the scarlet snare

The soul that startles in eyes of blue

To watch thy wantoness weeping through

The tangled grove, the gnarled bole

Of the living tree that is spirit and soul

And body and brain come over the sea

(Io Pan! Io Pan!)

Devil or God, to me, to me

My man! My man!

Come with trumpets sounding shrill

Over the hill!

Come with drums low muttering

From the spring!

Come with flute and come with pipe!

Am I not ripe?

I, who wait and writhe and wrestle

With air that hath no boughs to nestle

My body, weary of empty clasp

Strong as a lion, and sharp as an asp

Come, O come!

I am numb

With the lonely lust of devildom

Thrust the sword through the galling fetter

All devourer, all begetter

Give me the sign of the open eye

And the token erect of thorny thigh

And the word of madness and mystery

O pan! Io Pan!

Io Pan! Io Pan! Pan Pan! Pan

I am a man

Do as thou wilt, as a great God can

O Pan! Io Pan!

Io pan! Io Pan Pan! I am awake

In the grip of the snake

The eagle slashes with beak and claw

The gods withdraw

The great beasts come, Io Pan! I am borne

To death on the horn

Of the Unicorn

I am Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan!

I am thy mate, I am thy man

Goat of thy flock, I am gold, I am God

Flesh to thy bone, flower to thy rod

With hoofs of steel I race on the rocks

Through solstice stubborn to equinox

And I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend

Everlasting, world without end

Mannikin, maiden, maenad, man

In the might of Pan

Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan! Io Pan!