Pan and Echo – The Naiads’ Music

Lyrics

Where while I seek you, Echo, do you lie, Love? I love! Yes, and you love me say, none other -- none? One! You, you alone I love, for you there's no one else? One else! Can you not say "I love you, Pan, none other"? Another! By this you tell me all my joy is sped? Dead! Say his cursèd name that stole my love that throve! Love! What shall he do that loved, that loved as I? Die! [NAIADS] Come, ye sorrowful, and steep Your tirеd brows in a nectarous sleep: For our kisses Iightlier run Than thе traceries of the sun By the lolling water cast Up grey precipices vast Lifting smooth, and warm and steep Out of the palely shimmering deep [FAUNS] I know a spot Where, to the sound of water sighing The Naiads sing hushedly [NAIADS] Come, ye sorrowful, and take Kisses that are but half awake: For here are eyes O softer far Than the blossom of the star Upon the mothy twilit waters; And here are mouths whose gentle laughters Are but the echoes of the deep Laughing and murmuring in its sleep [FAUNS] I will repose Upon its banks and to the spring An answer make [NAIADS] But if ye sons of Sorrow come Only wishing to be numb: Our eyes are sad as bluebell posies Our breasts are soft as silken roses And our hands are tenderer Than the breaths that scarce can stir The sunlit eglantine that is Murmurous with hidden bees [FAUNS] Your deeps hold dreams Lovelier than sleep [NAIADS] Come, ye sorrowful, for here No voices sound but soft and clear Of mouths as lorn as is the rose That under water doth disclose Amid her crimson petals torn A heart as golden as the morn; And here are tresses languorous As weeds wander over us And brows as holy and as bland As the honey-coloured sand Lying sun-entranced below The lazy water's limpid flow: Come, ye sorrowful, come! [FAUNS] Sweet watervoices! Now must I Unto your sorrowings reply