Fifty-One Tales | Page 2

while. It was not usual for the gods to send no
one down from Earth for such a space. But the gods knew best.
Then one man came alone. And the little shade sat shivering on a
lonely bench and the great boat pushed off. Only one passenger: the
gods knew best. And great and weary Charon rowed on and on beside
the little, silent, shivering ghost.
And the sound of the river was like a mighty sigh that Grief in the
beginning had sighed among her sisters, and that could not die like the
echoes of human sorrow failing on earthly hills, but was as old as time
and the pain in Charon's arms.
Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the coast of Dis
and the little, silent shade still shivering stepped ashore, and Charon

turned the boat to go wearily back to the world. Then the little shadow
spoke, that had been a man.
"I am the last," he said.
No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before had ever
made him weep.

THE DEATH OF PAN
When travellers from London entered Arcady they lamented one to
another the death of Pan.
And anon they saw him lying stiff and still.
Horned Pan was still and the dew was on his fur; he had not the look of
a live animal. And then they said, "It is true that Pan is dead."
And, standing melancholy by that huge prone body, they looked for
long at memorable Pan.
And evening came and a small star appeared.
And presently from a hamlet of some Arcadian valley, with a sound of
idle song, Arcadian maidens came.
And, when they saw there, suddenly in the twilight, that old recumbent
god, they stopped in their running and whispered among themselves.
"How silly he looks," they said, and thereat they laughed a little.
And at the sound of their laughter Pan leaped up and the gravel flew
from his hooves.
And, for as long as the travellers stood and listened, the crags and the
hill-tops of Arcady rang with the sounds of pursuit.

THE SPHINX AT GIZEH
I saw the other day the Sphinx's painted face.
She had painted her face in order to ogle Time.
And he has spared no other painted face in all the world but hers.
Delilah was younger than she, and Delilah is dust. Time hath loved
nothing but this worthless painted face.
I do not care that she is ugly, nor that she has painted her face, so that
she only lure his secret from Time.
Time dallies like a fool at her feet when he should be smiting cities.
Time never wearies of her silly smile.
There are temples all about her that he has forgotten to spoil.
I saw an old man go by, and Time never touched him.
Time that has carried away the seven gates of Thebes!
She has tried to bind him with ropes of eternal sand, she had hoped to
oppress him with the Pyramids.
He lies there in the sand with his foolish hair all spread about her paws.
If she ever finds his secret we will put out his eyes, so that he shall find
no more our beautiful things--there are lovely gates in Florence that I
fear he will carry away.
We have tried to bind him with song and with old customs, but they
only held him for a little while, and he has always smitten us and
mocked us.
When he is blind he shall dance to us and make sport.

Great clumsy time shall stumble and dance, who liked to kill little
children, and can hurt even the daisies no longer.
Then shall our children laugh at him who slew Babylon's winged bulls,
and smote great numbers of the gods and fairies--when he is shorn of
his hours and his years.
We will shut him up in the Pyramid of Cheops, in the great chamber
where the sarcophagus is. Thence we will lead him out when we give
our feasts. He shall ripen our corn for us and do menial work.
We will kiss they painted face, O Sphinx, if thou wilt betray to us
Time.
And yet I fear that in his ultimate anguish he may take hold blindly of
the world and the moon, and slowly pull down upon him the House of
Man.

THE HEN
All along the farmyard gables the swallows sat a-row, twittering
uneasily to one another, telling of many things, but thinking only of
Summer and the South, for Autumn was afoot and the North wind
waiting.
And suddenly one day they were all quite gone. And everyone spoke of
the swallows and the South.
"I think I shall go South myself next