Ephemera (Buck)/On the Agora

by Mitchell Starrett Buck

ON THE AGORA

—Seest thou that young man in the white linen tunic with a yellow sash? Look at him well.

—I see him. Who is he?

—He is a poet. His verses are very strange. In them one can hear the sighing of the wind, the murmur of waters, the whisperings of the trees . . . They are very strange . . . But that is not all. Some which I have heard are stranger still . . . They say he has seen the nymphs. They say he has slept in the forests among the satyrs; that Pan himself once listened from a leafy bower while he sang . . . And when he plays the syrinx, no one can resist him.

—He is looking this way. How strangely piercing his eyes! . . . He is very beautiful. Let us go speak with him . . .

—I dare not. I dare not.