Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

266 Pans Pipes
pleasing whenever they are pleased, and hand
on their happiness to others, as a child who,
looking upon lovely things, looks lovely.
Some leap to the strains with unapt foot,
and make a halting figure in the universal
dance. And some, like sour spectators at
the play, receive the music into their hearts
with an unmoved countenance, and walk
like strangers through the general rejoicing.
But let him feign never so carefully, there
is not a man but has his pulses shaken when
Pan trolls out a stave of ecstasy and sets
the world a-singing.
Alas if that were all ! But oftentimes the
air is changed ; and in the screech of the
night wind, chasing navies, subverting the
tall ships and the rooted cedar of the hills ;
in the random deadly levin or the fury of
headlong floods, we recognise the "dread
foundation " of life and the anger in Pan's
heart. Earth wages open war against her
children, and under her softest touch hides
treacherous claws. The cool waters invite
us in to dro\yn ; the domestic hearth burns