Fifty-One Tales | Page 2

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 year," said a hen.
And the year wore on and the swallows came again, and the year wore on and they sat again on the gables, and all the poultry discussed the departure of the hen.
And very early one morning, the wind being from the North, the swallows all soared suddenly and felt the wind in their wings; and a strength came upon them and a strange old knowledge and a more than human faith, and flying high they left the smoke of our cities and small remembered eaves, and saw at last the huge and homeless sea, and steering by grey sea-currents went southward with the wind. And going South they went by glittering fog-banks and saw old islands lifting their heads above them; they