HOW hath he stumbled hither, in search of love and praise,
A tardy comer and goer across the world’s highways,
A kind shape from the thicket, a wanderer all his days?
He finds a rocky seat where the moiling town recedes:
The altered shepherds flout him; but O he little heeds!
Incredulous he swings there, and drones upon his reeds.
He stamps his cloven heel, and he laughs adown the wind,
With eye that wanes and waxes at doings of mankind.
Slow, slow creeps the invader upon that happy mind.
The apple breasts his fellow; doves wheel by two and three,
And ever dance in circle the shallops on the sea;
The goats and deer are many; but playmate none hath he,
Nor nymph nor child to follow upon his signals rude;
He smiles: there is no frolic; he snarls: there is no feud.
He feels his poor heart sinking at every interlude.
His shaggy ear and freakish resents the wail and din;
Earth’s rumors chill his veins with their ghostly gliding in;
He aches to slip these tethers, and be where he hath been.
Elsewhere is waking glory, and here the dream, the thrall.
Hush! hear the sunless waters, the wrestling leaves that call!
He lops the grass, and whistles; and while he cheats them all,
Obeys, is gone, gone wholly. From alien air too cold,
The Faun, with garlands flying, with sylvan ditties trolled,
Being homesick, being patient, regains his greenwood old.