Later Poems / by Bliss Carman [electronic text]

The Urban Pan

ONCE more the magic days are come With stronger sun and milder air; The shops are full of daffodils; There's golden leisure everywhere. I heard my Lou this morning shout: "Here comes the hurdy-gurdy man!" And through the open window caught The piping of the urban Pan.

I laid my wintry task aside, And took a day to follow joy: The trail of beauty and the call That lured me when I was a boy. I looked, and there looked up at me A smiling, swarthy, hairy man With kindling eye—and well I knew The piping of the urban Pan.

He caught my mood; his hat was off; I tossed the ungrudged silver down. The cunning vagrant, every year He casts his spell upon the town! And we must fling him, old and young, Our dimes or coppers, as we can; And every heart must leap to hear The piping of the urban Pan.

The music swells and fades again, And I in dreams am far away, Where a bright river sparkles down To meet a blue Aegean bay. There, in the springtime of the world, Are dancing fauns, and in their van, Is one who pipes a deathless tune— The earth-born and the urban Pan.

And so he follows down the block,A troop of children in his train, The light-foot dancers of the street Enamored of the reedy strain. I hear their laughter rise and ring Above the noise of truck and van,As down the mellow wind fades outThe piping of the urban Pan.