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!