Then double dread was theirs; and dread Was Thamus'; and he raised his hand And shouted, "Pan! great Pan is dead!" And all the twilight-haunted land Cried, "Pan is dead!" from peak to strand.
They saw pale shrines and temples nod Among the shaken trees: and pale Wild forms of goddess and of god Crawl forth with crumbling limbs and trail Woe, till the dim land grew one wail.--
What tripods groaned?--Serapis first Within Canopus' temples heard The word, and his brute granite burst Its monster bulk. Dodona stirred And bowed its oaks before the word
That left them thunder-riv'n; then passed To Aphaca where, marble-hewn, Venus possessed a well that glassed Her form, white-burning, like the moon-- And lo! her loveliness lay strewn.
Then o'er Cilicia swept, and bent Sarpedon's oracle with scorn, Apollo.--Yea! the gods lay rent And Delphos dumb. And, lo! the morn Flamed o'er the world where Christ lay born.
She was a queen. 'Midst mutes and slaves, A mameluke, he loved her.--Waves Dashed not more hopelessly the paves Of her high marble palace-stair Than lashed his love his heart's despair.-- As souls in Hell dream Paradise, He suffered yet forgot it there Beneath Rommaneh's houri eyes.
With passion eating at his heart He served her beauty, but dared dart No look at her or word impart.-- Taïfi leather's perfumed tan Beneath her, on a low divan She lay 'mid cushions stuffed with down; A slave-girl with an ostrich fan Sat by her in a golden gown.
She bade him sing; fair lutanist She loved his voice: with one white wrist, Hooped with a blaze of amethyst, She raised her ruby-crusted lute: Gold-welted stuff, like some rich fruit, Her raiment, diamond-showered, rolled Folds pigeon-purple, whence one foot Drooped in an anklet-twist of gold.
He stood and sang with all the fire That boiled within his blood's desire, That made him all her slave yet higher: And, at the end, his passion durst Quench with one burning kiss its thirst.-- O eunuchs! did her face show scorn When through his heart your daggers burst? And dare you say he died forlorn?
_A jongleur tells to the Viscountess of Ventadour,--wife of the Seigneur of the Château de Ventadour, in Limousin,--how the troubadour Bernard, her former lover, met his death. Time, the middle of the 12th century._