Poetry
The Stranger
A STRANGE star told to Pan His kingdom was over ; Terror, bewilderment, ran Through drove and the drover ; His jolly oaten pipe He left unsounded ; Satyr, Silenus ripe Away from him bounded.
He roamed, poor lonely Pan, The Mediterranean ; Half-joying, half-trembling he ran Down deeps subterranean, Yet ever through cave-top or chink Was the shine unwonted Of Beauty too awesome to drink, And voices that chaunted.
Outside a Bethlehem stable He stood, most frightened ; Giftless, to enter unable, While heaven whitened. And he saw the Magi handle Gold, frankincense, myrrh, Where tall as a pale white candle Burnt the beauty of Her.
For hours in the cold Pan waited, Till the inn and the street Grew soundless, except for belated Far homings of feet.
He peeped : like beasts in a picture, Breath frozen and mild, Ox, ass, without stricture, Were nosing the Child.
A child, as other children, Whose tired mother slept, Our Lord found nothing bewildering As Pan to him crept, But he laughed right merrily, fingering This shag of a goat, And left in the dumb heart lingering A magical note.
0 the little hands tugged and fisted, And the great heart cried As if it were being twisted By tendrils aside.
They stopped, they looked, they listened : As Mary awoke, Through the roof where the strange star glistenerl World-melodies broke. GEOFFREY JOHNSON.
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