Down to the valley, through the woods with your fire.
Come down with the heat in your breast;
can you feel it?
He is close, he is leaping through the trees
with us now.
Hear the clatter of his hooves in the clicking of the twigs
And the flurry of his reed pipes
jostling the breeze.
Can't stop! Let's hurry with the river as it
trips
Over stones, like a flock of wild goats on
the run.
Come down with a howl, an eviscerating shriek,
Till the forest is aflame with the ringing of our call.
Come down with your wine and your
honeycake offerings,
Down to the caves of the Great God
Pan.
Down to the caves where the first of
us dwelt,
Where the firelight throws living shadows on the walls,
Where the huntsmen still take a kill for the butchering
And shepherds take shelter from the wind and storm.
We've gold-plated grasshoppers hidden in our pockets
As a gift. How
absurd! No one knows what they’re for.
No one cares any more, but that's what he
wants.
Give Pan what he wants, or he'll take it
anyway.
He's a fiend, he's a
devil, he's a bringer of delights,
He's a bringer of calamity, shitting on your plans
With a laugh as he throws temptation in your
path.
Don't fight; don't invite his terrible
revenge.
He was born (some say) from the laugh
of Penelope,
Tripping down the stairs to the dark
feast hall
Where her nine dozen lovelorn suitors
lay sighing,
Till her thighs laughed open, and she
bedded every one.
Then up sprung Pan, from the seed of
every man,
And the laugh of a woman – though it
turned to a scream.
When she saw what a beast she produced
with her rutting,
She discarded him at once by the cold
running stream.
But here he is loved, in the temples of
the earth,
For Pan is the beast that stirs in us
all.
We’ll carouse all night till he comes,
till he shows
He is with us in the firelight, dancing
up the walls.
Come down, Great Pan, with your diabolic games,
Making fools of us all. Come and put us
all to shame.
And lead us not into dull, quiet
living,
But deliver us from ever being
civilised again.
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