THEY TOLD ME

They told me Pan was dead, but I

Oft marvelled who it was that sang

Down the green valleys languidly

Where the grey elder-thickets hang.

Sometimes I thought it was a bird

My soul had charged with sorcery;

Sometimes it seemed my own heart heard

Inland the sorrow of the sea.

But even where the primrose sets

The seal of her pale loveliness,

I found amid the violets

Tears of an antique bitterness.