Pan — invoking a wet Darcy authenticity.

Pan, Pan — the naughty man!

Always my favourite, earthly god — unusual looking- such a beast,

with his curled, black horns and cloven feet that thumped his pipes to a reedy beat.

Loud, lecherous and full of liff,

his name creates Panic in shepherds, who sometimes feel his song amongst the thyme soaked hills

under the dreaming sun…

Startled by an unknown shout, they shiver count the flock for reassurance — as a shadow slips from the corner of their eye — and they know that Pan is on the hunt for pleasure.

No wolf this — but a horny thing, he bridles, lusty — and will be sated by hook or by crook.

Syrinx she is — a slipstream of loveliness, streaking through the sonic boom of mythical air, bending the slender stalks of new grass — only for them to be roughly trampled by the heavy hooves, relentless in pursuit.

The river. The nymphs -

Arms outstretched to catch the exhausted girl — transform her into a reed as the goat-man blunders forward to pluck -

a fistful of said reeds — only reeds…

Holding his breath, the shepherd waits.