Lays and Legends of the English Lake Country. White John White

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СКАЧАТЬ with his mate a mighty Pard

      On Langdale-head, kept watchful ward:—

      That great God Pan his soul might cheer,

      Glass'd in the depths of Windermere.

      Then down the dell from steep to steep,

      With many a wild and wayward leap,

      The God descending stood beside

      His image on the golden tide.

      His shaggy sides in full content

      He sunn'd, and o'er the waters bent;

      Then hugg'd himself the reeds among,

      And piped his best Arcadian song.

      What was it, as he knelt and drew

      The wave to sip, that pierced him through?

      What whispered sound, what stifled roar,

      Has reached him listening on the shore?

      He shivers on the old lake stones;

      He leans, aghast, to catch the groans

      Which come like voices uttering woe

      Up all the streams, and bid him go.

      Onward the looming troubles roll,

      All centring towards his mighty soul.

      He shriek'd! and in a moment's flight,

      Stunn'd, through the thickets plunged from sight.

      Plunged he, his unking'd head to hide

      With goats and herds in forests wide?

      Or down beneath the rocks to lie,

      Shut in from leaves, and fields, and sky?

      Gone was the great God out from earth!

      Gone, with his pipe of tuneful mirth!

      Whither, and wherefore, men may say

      Who stood where Pilate mused that day.

      And with that breath that crisp'd the rills,

      And with that shock that smote the hills,

      A moment Nature sobb'd and mourn'd,

      And things of life to rocks were turned.

      Stricken to stone in heart and limb,

      Like all things else that followed him,

      Yonder his Dog lies watching still

      For Pan's lost step to climb the hill.

      And those twin Pards, huge, worn with time,

      Stretch still their rocky lengths sublime,

      Where once they watched to guard from man

      The sportive mood of great God Pan.

      And craggy Helm's grey Lion rears

      The mane he shook in those old years,

      In changeless stone, from morn to morn

      Awaiting still great Pan's return.

      Could he come back again, to range

      The earth, how much must all things change!

      Not Nature's self, even rock and stone,

      Would deign her perished God to own.

      The former life all fled away—

      No custom'd haunt to bid him stay—

      No flower on earth, no orb on high,

      No place, to know him—Pan must die.

      Down with his age he went to rest;

      His great heart, stricken in his breast

      By tidings from that far-off shore,

      Burst—and great Pan was King no more!

      NOTES TO "PAN ON KIRKSTONE."

      The sudden trouble and annihilation of Pan have reference to a passage in Plutarch, in his Treatise on Oracles, in which he relates that at the time of the Crucifixion, a voice was heard by certain mariners, sweeping over the Egean Sea, and crying "Pan is dead"; and the Oracles ceased. This idea, so beautifully expressing the overthrow of Paganism, and the flight of the old gods, at the inauguration of Christianity, Milton has finely elaborated in his sublime "Hymn on the Morning of the Nativity."

      Many of the mountains in the North of England derive their name from some peculiarity of form: as Helm-Crag in Grasmere, Saddle-Back near Keswick, Great Gable at the head of Wast-Water, The Pillar in Ennerdale, The Hay Stacks, The Haycocks, High Stile, Steeple, &c.

      There are also very marked resemblances to animate objects, well known to those familiar with the Lake District, as the Lion and the Lamb on the summit of Helm-Crag; the Astrologer, or Old woman cowering, on the same spot when seen from another quarter; the rude similitude of a female colossal statue, which gives the name of Eve's Crag to a cliff in the vale of Derwentwater. An interesting and but little known Arthurian reminiscence is found in the old legend that the recumbent effigy of that great king may be traced from some parts of the neighbourhood of Penrith in the outlines of the mountain range of which the peaks of Saddleback form the most prominent points. From the little hill of Castle Head or Castlet, the royal face of George the Third with its double chin, short nose, and receding forehead, can be quite made out in the crowning knob of Causey Pike. From under Barf, near Bassenthwaite Water, is seen the form which gives name to the Apostle's Crag. At a particular spot, the solemn shrouded figure comes out with bowed head and reverent mien, as if actually detaching itself from the rock—a vision seen by the passer by only for a few yards, when the magic ceases, and the Apostle goes back to stone. The massy forms of the Langdale Pikes, as seen from the south east, with the sweeping curve of Pavey Ark behind, are strikingly suggestive of two gigantic lions or pards, crouching side by side, with their breasts half turned towards the spectator. And a remarkable figure of a shepherd's dog, but of no great size, may be seen stretched out on a jutting crag, about half way up the precipice which overhangs the road, as the summit of Kirkstone Pass is approached from Brother's Water. It is not strictly, as stated in the foregoing verses, on the part of Kirkstone Fell called Red Screes, but some distance below it on the Patterdale side.

      Among the freaks of Nature occasionally to be found in these hilly regions, is the print of the heifer's foot in Borrowdale, shown by the guides; and on a stone near Buck-Crag in Eskdale, the impressions of the foot of a man, a boy, and a dog, without any marks of tooling or instrument; and the remarkable precipices of Doe-Crag and Earn-Crag, whose fronts are polished as marble, the one 160 yards in perpendicular height, the other 120 yards.

      On the top of the Screes, above Wastwater, stood for ages a very large stone called Wilson's Horse; which about a century ago fell down into the lake, when a cleft was made one hundred yards long, four feet wide, and of incredible depth.

      ST. BEGA AND THE SNOW MIRACLE

      The seas will rise though saints on board

      Commend their frail skiff to the Lord.

      And Bega and her holy band

      Are shipwrecked on the Cumbrian strand.

      "Give me," she asked, "for me and mine,

      O Lady of high Bretwalda's line!

      Give, for His sake who succoured thee,

      A shelter for these maids and me."—

      Then sew'd, and spun, and crewl-work wrought,3

      And served the poor they meekly taught,

      These СКАЧАТЬ