Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 

 

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The Dead Pan.

 

 

Excited by Schiller's "Götter Griechenlands," and partly founded on a well-known tradition mentioned in a treatise of Plutarch ("De Oraculorum Defectu"), according to which, at the hour of the Saviour's agony, a cry of "Great Pan is dead!" swept across the waves in the hearing of certain mariners, – and the oracles ceased.

It is in all veneration to the memory of the deathless Schiller, that I oppose a doctrine still more dishonouring to poetry than to Christianity.

As Mr. Kenyon's graceful and harmonious paraphrase of the German poem was the first occasion of the turning of my thoughts in this direction, I take advantage of the pretence to indulge my feelings (which overflow on other grounds) by inscribing my lyric to that dear friend and relative, with the earnestness of appreciating esteem as well as of affectionate gratitude. E. B. B.

 

 

5   GODS of Hellas, gods of Hellas,
Can ye listen in your silence?
Can your mystic voices tell us
Where ye hide?   In floating islands,
With a wind that evermore
10   Keeps you out of sight of shore?
                                    Pan, Pan is dead.

[263] In what revels are ye sunken
In old Æthiopia?
Have the Pygmies made you drunken,
15   Bathing in mandragora
Your divine pale lips that shiver
Like the lotus in the river?
                                    Pan, Pan is dead.

Do ye sit there still in slumber,
20   In gigantic Alpine rows?
The black poppies out of number
Nodding, dripping from your brows
To the red lees of your wine, –
And so kept alive and fine?
25                                       Pan, Pan is dead.

Or lie crushed your stagnant corses
Where the silver spheres roll on,
Stung to life by centric forces
Thrown like rays out from the sun? –
30   While the smoke of your old altars
Is the shroud that round you welters?
                                    Great Pan is dead.

[264] Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas,
Said the old Hellenic tongue!
35   Said the hero–oaths, as well as
Poets' songs the sweetest sung!
Have ye grown deaf in a day?
Can ye speak not yea or nay —
                                    Since Pan is dead?
40    
Do ye leave your rivers flowing
All alone, O Naiades,
While your drenched locks dry slow in
This cold feeble sun and breeze? —
Not a word the Naiads say,
45   Though the rivers run for aye.
                                    For Pan is dead.

From the gloaming of the oak wood,
O ye Dryads, could ye flee?
At the rushing thunderstroke, would
50   No sob tremble through the tree? —
Not a word the Dryads say,
Though the forests wave for aye.
                                    For Pan is dead.

[265] Have ye left the mountain places,
55   Oreads wild, for other tryst?
Shall we see no sudden faces
Strike a glory through the mist?
Not a sound the silence thrills,
Of the everlasting hills.
60                                       Pan, Pan is dead.

O twelve gods of Plato's vision,
Crowned to starry wanderings, —
With your chariots in procession,
And your silver clash of wings!
65   Very pale ye seem to rise,
Ghosts of Grecian deities, —
                                    Now Pan is dead!

Jove! that right hand is unloaded,
Whence the thunder did prevail:
70   While in idiocy of godhead,
Thou art staring the stars pale!
And thine eagle, blind and old,
Roughs his feathers in the cold.
                                    Pan, Pan is dead.
75    
[266] Where, O Juno, is the glory
Of thy regal look and tread?
Will they lay, for evermore, thee,
On thy dim, strait, golden bed?
Will thy queendom all lie hid
80   Meekly under either lid?
                                    Pan, Pan is dead.

Ha, Apollo!   Floats his golden
Hair, all mist–like where he stands;
While the Muses hang enfolding
85   Knee and foot with faint wild hands?
'Neath the clanging of thy bow,
Niobe looked lost as thou!
                                    Pan, Pan is dead.

Shall the casque with its brown iron,
90   Pallas' broad blue eyes, eclipse, –
And no hero take inspiring
From the God–Greek of her lips?
'Neath her olive dost thou sit,
Mars the mighty, cursing it?
95                                       Pan, Pan is dead.

|267] Bacchus, Bacchus! On the panther
He swoons, — bound with his own vines!
And his Mænads slowly saunter,
Head aside, among the pines,
100   While they murmur dreamingly, –
'Evohe — ah — evohe —'!
                                    Ah, Pan is dead.

Neptune lies beside the trident,
Dull and senseless as a stone:
105   And old Pluto deaf and silent
Is cast out into the sun.
Ceres smileth stern thereat, –
'We all now are desolate —'
                                    Now Pan is dead.
110    
Aphrodite! Dead and driven
As thy native foam, thou art;
With the cestus long done heaving
On the white calm of thine heart!
Ai Adonis!   At that shriek,
115   Not a tear runs down her cheek —
                                    Pan, Pan is dead.

[268] And the Loves we used to know from
One another, – huddled lie,
Frore as taken in a snow–storm,
120   Close beside her tenderly, —
As if each had weakly tried
Once to kiss her as he died.
                                    Pan, Pan is dead.

What, and Hermes?   Time enthralleth
125   All thy cunning, Hermes, thus, —
And the ivy blindly crawleth
Round thy brave caduceus?
Hast thou no new message for us,
Full of thunder and Jove–glories?
130                                       Nay! Pan is dead.

Crowned Cybele's great turret
Rocks and crumbles on her head:
Roar the lions of her chariot
Toward the wilderness, unfed:
135   Scornful children are not mute, —
"Mother, mother, walk a–foot —
                                    Since Pan is dead."

[269] In the fiery–hearted center
Of the solemn universe,
140   Ancient Vesta, — who could enter
To consume thee with this curse?
Drop thy grey chin on thy knee,
O thou palsied Mystery!
                                    For Pan is dead.
145    
Gods! we vainly do adjure you, —
Ye return nor voice nor sign:
Not a votary could secure you
Even a grave for your Divine!
Not a grave, to show thereby,
150   Here these grey old gods do lie!
                                    Pan, Pan is dead.

Even that Greece who took your wages,
Calls the obolus outworn:
And the hoarse, deep–throated ages
155   Laugh your godships unto scorn –
And the poets do disclaim you,
Or grow colder if they name you —
                                    And Pan is dead.

[270] Gods bereaved, gods belated, –
160   With your purples rent asunder!
Gods discrowned and desecrated,
Disinherited of thunder!
Now, the goats may climb and crop
The soft grass on Ida's top —
165                                       Now, Pan is dead.

Calm, of old, the bark went onward,
When a cry more loud than wind,
Rose up, deepened, and swept sunward,
From the pilèd Dark behind:
170   And the sun shrank and grew pale,
Breathed against by the great wail —
                                    Pan, Pan is dead.

And the rowers from the benches
Fell, — each shuddering on his face —
175   While departing Influences
Struck a cold back through the place:
And the shadow of the ship
Reeled along the passive deep —
                                    Pan, Pan is dead.
180    
[271] And that dismal cry rose slowly,
And sank slowly through the air;
Full of spirit's melancholy
And eternity's despair!
And they heard the words it said —
185   PAN IS DEAD – GREAT PAN IS DEAD –
                                    PAN, PAN IS DEAD.

'Twas the hour when One in Sion
Hung for love's sake on a cross –
When His brow was chill with dying,
190   And His soul was faint with loss;
When His priestly blood dropped downward,
And his kingly eyes looked throneward —
                                    Then, Pan was dead.

By the love He stood alone in,
195   His sole Godhead rose complete:
And the false gods fell down moaning,
Each from off his golden seat –
All the false gods with a cry
Rendered up their deity —
200                                       Pan, Pan was dead.

[272] Wailing wide across the islands,
They rent, vest–like, their Divine!
And a darkness and a silence
Quenched the light of every shrine:
205   And Dodona's oak swang lonely
Henceforth, to the tempest only.
                                    Pan, Pan was dead.

Pythia staggered, — feeling o'er her,
Her lost god's forsaking look!
210   Straight her eyeballs filmed with horror,
And her crispy fillets shook –
And her lips gasped through their foam,
For a word that did not come.
                                    Pan, Pan was dead.
215    
O ye vain false gods of Hellas,
Ye are silent evermore!
And I dash down this old chalice,
Whence libations ran of yore.
See! the wine crawls in the dust
220   Wormlike — as your glories must!
                                    Since Pan is dead.

[273] Get to dust, as common mortals,
By a common doom and track!
Let no Schiller from the portals
225   Of that Hades, call you back, –
Or instruct us to weep all
At your antique funeral.
                                    Pan, Pan is dead.

By your beauty, which confesses
230   Some chief Beauty conquering you, —
By our grand heroic guesses,
Through your falsehood, at the True, —
We will weep not...! earth shall roll
Heir to each god's aureole –
235                                       And Pan is dead.

Earth outgrows the mythic fancies
Sung beside her in her youth:
And those debonaire romances
Sound but dull beside the truth.
240   Phœbus' chariot–course is run!
Look up, poets, to the sun!
                                    Pan, Pan is dead.

[274] Christ hath sent us down the angels;
And the whole earth and the skies
245   Are illumed by altar–candles
Lit for blessèd mysteries.
And a Priest's Hand, through creation,
Waveth calm and consecration –
                                    And Pan is dead.
250    
Truth is fair: should we forego it?
Can we sigh right for a wrong?
God himself is the best Poet,
And the Real is His song.
Sing His truth out fair and full,
255   And secure His beautiful.
                                    Let Pan be dead.

Truth is large.   Our aspiration
Scarce embraces half we be.
Shame! to stand in His creation
260   And doubt truth's sufficiency! —
To think God's song unexcelling
The poor tales of our own telling —
                                    When Pan is dead.

[275] What is true and just and honest,
265   What is lovely, what is pure —
All of praise that hath admonisht, –
All of virtue, shall endure, —
These are themes for poets' uses,
Stirring nobler than the Muses –
270                                       Ere Pan was dead.

O brave poets, keep back nothing;
Nor mix falsehood with the whole!
Look up Godward! speak the truth in
Worthy song from earnest soul!
  Hold, in high poetic duty,
Truest Truth the fairest Beauty!
                                    Pan, Pan is dead.

 

 

 

 

Erstdruck und Druckvorlage

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Poems.
In Two Volumes.
Vol. II. London: Moxon 1844, S. 262-275.

URL: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007469089

Die Textwiedergabe erfolgt nach dem ersten Druck (Editionsrichtlinien).

 

 

 

Literatur

Bevis, Matthew (Hrsg.): The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Poetry. Oxford u.a. 2013.

Brandmeyer, Rudolf: Poetologische Lyrik. In: Handbuch Lyrik. Theorie, Analyse, Geschichte. Hrsg. von Dieter Lamping. 2. Aufl. Stuttgart 2016, S. 164-168.

Davies, Corinne: Two of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Pan Poems and Their After-Life in Robert Browning's "Pan and Luna". In: Victorian Poetry 44 (2006), S. 561-69.
URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40002705

Dawson, Clara: Victorian Poetry and the Culture of Evaluation. Oxford 2020.

Gymnich, Marion / Müller-Zettelmann, Eva: Metalyrik: Gattungsspezifische Besonderheiten, Formenspektrum und zentrale Funktionen. In: Metaisierung in Literatur und anderen Medien. Theoretische Grundlagen – Historische Perspektiven – Metagattungen – Funktionen. Hrsg. von Janine Hauthal u.a. Berlin u.a. 2007 (= spectrum Literaturwissenschaft / spectrum Literature, 12), S. 65-91.

Hughes, Linda K. (Hrsg.): The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Women's Poetry. Cambridge 2019.

Kenyon, J.: The Gods of Greece. Paraphrased from Schiller. In: The Keepsake. 1843, S. 77-80.
URL: https://books.google.de/books?id=2KsLAAAAIAAJ
URL: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009676157

Lyons, Sara: The Disenchantment/Re-Enchantment of the World: Aesthetics, Secularization, and the Gods of Greece from Friedrich Schiller to Walter Pater. In: Modern Language Review 109 (2014), S. 873-895.

Martus, Steffen u.a. (Hrsg.): Lyrik im 19. Jahrhundert. Gattungspoetik als Reflexionsmedium der Kultur. Bern u.a. 2005 (= Publikationen zur Zeitschrift für Germanistik, 11).

Morlier, Margaret M.: The Death of Pan: Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the Romantic Ego. In: Browning Institute Studies 18 (1990), S. 131-155.
URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25057866

Prins, Yopie: "What is Historical Poetics?" In: Modern Language Quarterly 77.1 (2016), S. 13–40.

Sadenwasser, Tim: Rhyme, Form, and Sound in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's The Dead Pan. In: Victorian Poetry 37 (1999 ), S. 521-37.

Waithe, Marcus / White, Claire (Hrsg.): The Labour of Literature in Britain and France, 1830-1910. Authorial Work Ethics. London 2018.

 

 

Edition
Lyriktheorie » R. Brandmeyer