Pan in Vermont

It's forty in the shade to-day the spouting eaves declare;
The boulders nose above the drift, the southern slopes are bare;
Hub-deep in slush Apollo's car swings north along the Zodiac. Good luck, the Spring is back, and Pan is on the road!
His house is Gee & Tellus' Sons, — so goes his jest with men —
He sold us Zeus knows what last year; he'll take us in again.
Disguised behind a livery-team, fur-coated, rubber-shod —
Yet Apis from the bull-pen lows — he knows his brother God!

Now down the lines of tasselled pines the yearning whispers wake —
Pitys of old thy love behold. Come in for Hermes' sake!
How long since that so-Boston boot with reeling Maenads ran?
Numen adest! Let be the rest. Pipe and we pay, O Pan.

(What though his phlox and hollyhocks ere half a month demised?
What though his ampelopsis clambered not as advertised?
Though every seed was guaranteed and every standard true —
Forget, forgive they did not live! Believe, and buy anew!)

Now o'er a careless knee he flings the painted page abroad —
Such bloom hath never eye beheld this side the Eden Sword;
Such fruit Pomona marks her own, yea, Liber oversees
That we may reach (one dollar each) the Lost Hesperides!

Serene, assenting, unabashed, he writes our orders down: —
Blue Asphodel on all our paths — a few true bays for crown —
Uncankered bud, immortal flower, and leaves that never fall —
Apples of Gold, of Youth, of Health — and — thank you, Pan, that's all.

He's off along the drifted pent to catch the Windsor train,
And swindle every citizen from Keene to Lake Champlain;
But where his goat's-hoof cut the crust — beloved, look below —
He's left us (I'll forgive him all) the may-flower 'neath her snow!