C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Maurice Francis Egan (1852–1924)

THE OLD wine filled him, and he saw, with eyes

Anoint of Nature, fauns and dryads fair

Unseen by others; to him maidenhair

And waxen lilacs, and those birds that rise

A-sudden from tall reeds at slight surprise,

Brought charmèd thoughts; and in earth everywhere

He, like sad Jaques, found a music rare

As that of Syrinx to old Grecians wise.

A pagan heart, a Christian soul had he:

He followed Christ, yet for dead Pan he sighed.

Till earth and heaven met within his breast;

As if Theocritus in Sicily

Had come upon the Figure crucified,

And lost his gods in deep Christ-given rest.