For Pan's lost step to climb the hill.
And those twin Pards, huge, worn with time,
Stretch still their rocky lengths sublime,
Where once they watched to guard from man
The sportive mood of great God Pan.
And craggy Helm's grey Lion rears
The mane he shook in those old years,
In changeless stone, from morn to morn
Awaiting still great Pan's return.
Could he come back again, to range
The earth, how much must all things change!
Not Nature's self, even rock and stone,
Would deign her perished God to own.
The former life all fled away—
No custom'd haunt to bid him stay—
No flower on earth, no orb on high,
No place, to know him—Pan must die.
Down with his age he went to rest;
His great heart, stricken in his breast
By tidings from that far-off shore,
Burst—and great Pan was King no more!
NOTES TO "PAN ON KIRKSTONE."
The sudden trouble and annihilation of Pan have reference to a passage in Plutarch, in his Treatise on Oracles, in which he relates that at the time of the Crucifixion, a voice was heard by certain mariners, sweeping over the Egean Sea, and crying "Pan is dead"; and the Oracles ceased. This idea, so beautifully expressing the overthrow of Paganism, and the flight of the old gods, at the inauguration of Christianity, Milton has finely elaborated in his sublime "Hymn on the Morning of the Nativity."
Many of the mountains in the North of England derive their name from some peculiarity of form: as Helm-Crag in Grasmere, Saddle-Back near Keswick, Great Gable at the head of Wast-Water, The Pillar in Ennerdale, The Hay Stacks, The Haycocks, High Stile, Steeple, &c.
There are also very marked resemblances to animate objects, well known to those familiar with the Lake District, as the Lion and the Lamb on the summit of Helm-Crag; the Astrologer, or Old woman cowering, on the same spot when seen from another quarter; the rude similitude of a female colossal statue, which gives the name of Eve's Crag to a cliff in the vale of Derwentwater. An interesting and but little known Arthurian reminiscence is found in the old legend that the recumbent effigy of that great king may be traced from some parts of the neighbourhood of Penrith in the outlines of the mountain range of which the peaks of Saddleback form the most prominent points. From the little hill of Castle Head or Castlet, the royal face of George the Third with its double chin, short nose, and receding forehead, can be quite made out in the crowning knob of Causey Pike. From under Barf, near Bassenthwaite Water, is seen the form which gives name to the Apostle's Crag. At a particular spot, the solemn shrouded figure comes out with bowed head and reverent mien, as if actually detaching itself from the rock—a vision seen by the passer by only for a few yards, when the magic ceases, and the Apostle goes back to stone. The massy forms of the Langdale Pikes, as seen from the south east, with the sweeping curve of Pavey Ark behind, are strikingly suggestive of two gigantic lions or pards, crouching side by side, with their breasts half turned towards the spectator. And a remarkable figure of a shepherd's dog, but of no great size, may be seen stretched out on a jutting crag, about half way up the precipice which overhangs the road, as the summit of Kirkstone Pass is approached from Brother's Water. It is not strictly, as stated in the foregoing verses, on the part of Kirkstone Fell called Red Screes, but some distance below it on the Patterdale side.
Among the freaks of Nature occasionally to be found in these hilly regions, is the print of the heifer's foot in Borrowdale, shown by the guides; and on a stone near Buck-Crag in Eskdale, the impressions of the foot of a man, a boy, and a dog, without any marks of tooling or instrument; and the remarkable precipices of Doe-Crag and Earn-Crag, whose fronts are polished as marble, the one 160 yards in perpendicular height, the other 120 yards.
On the top of the Screes, above Wastwater, stood for ages a very large stone called Wilson's Horse; which about a century ago fell down into the lake, when a cleft was made one hundred yards long, four feet wide, and of incredible depth.
ST. BEGA AND THE SNOW MIRACLE
The seas will rise though saints on board
Commend their frail skiff to the Lord.
And Bega and her holy band
Are shipwrecked on the Cumbrian strand.
"Give me," she asked, "for me and mine,
O Lady of high Bretwalda's line!
Give, for His sake who succoured thee,
A shelter for these maids and me."—
Then sew'd, and spun, and crewl-work wrought,3
And served the poor they meekly taught,
These virgins good; and show'd the road
By blameless lives to Heaven and God.
They won from rude men love and praise;
They lived unmoved through evil days;
And only longed for a home to rise
To store up treasures for the skies.
That pious wish the Lady's bower
Has reached; and forth she paced the tower:—
"My gracious Lord! of thy free hand
Grant this good Saint three roods of land.
"Three roods, where she may rear a pile,
To sing God's praise through porch and aisle;
And, serving Him, us too may bless
For sheltering goodness in distress."
The Earl he turned him gaily near,
Laughed lightly in his Lady's ear—
"By this bright Eve of blessed St. John!
I'll give—what the snow to-morrow lies on."
His Lady roused him at dawn with smiles—
"The snow lies white for miles and miles!"
From loophole and turret he stares on the sight
Of Midsummer-morning clothed in white.
"—Well done, good Saint! the lands are thine.
Go, build thy church, and deck thy shrine.
I 'bate no jot of my plighted word,
Though lightly spoken and lightly heard.
"If mirth and my sweet Lady's grace
Have lost me many a farm and chace,
I know that power unseen belongs
To holy ways and Christian songs.
"And He, who thee from wind and wave
Deliverance and a refuge gave,
When we must brave a gloomier sea,
May hear thy prayers for mine and me."
NOTES TO "ST. BEGA AND THE SNOW MIRACLE."
The remains of the Monastery of St. Bees, about four miles south of Whitehaven, stand in a low situation, with marshy lands to the east, and on the west exposed to storms from the Irish Channel.
In respect to this religious foundation, Tanner says, "Bega, an holy woman