Pan With Us

"Pan" is a poem of Robert Frost. The song is part of Alva Henderson's A Seasonal Songbook.
"In Greek Mythology, Pan is the god of woods, fields and flocks, having a human torso and head with a goat’s legs, horns and ears. In this case he wanders out of a New England woods." (Alva Henderson)

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Date: 1968Composer: Alva HendersonText: Robert FrostSong Collection: A Seasonal Songbook

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Pan With Us
by Robert Frost

Pan came out of the woods one day,—
His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray,
The gray of the moss of the walls were they,—
And stood in the sun and looked his fill
tAt wooded valley and wooded hill.

He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand,
On a height of naked pasture land;
In all the country he did command
He saw no smoke and he saw no roof.
That was well! and he stamped a hoof.

His heart knew peace, for none came here
To this lean feeding save once a year
Someone to salt the half-wild steer,
Or homespun children with clicking pails
Who see so little they tell no tales.

He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach
A new-world song, far out of reach,
For a sylvan sign that the blue jay’s screech
And the whimper of hawks beside the sun
Were music enough for him, for one.

Times were changed from what they were;
Such pipes kept less of power to stir
The fruited bough of the juniper
And the fragile bluets clustered there
Than the merest aimless breath of air.

They were pipes of pagan mirth,
And the world had found new terms of worth.
He laid him down on the sun-burned earth
And raveled a flower and looked away—
Play? Play?— What should he play?

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