Still II ~ The Piper

- CHAPTER TWENTY -

Two

- chapter index -
pg. 1 - Introduction | pg. 2 - Eight | pg. 3 - Eight | pg. 4 - Eight | pg. 5 - Eight | pg. 6 - Eight
pg. 7 - The Dharma Wheel | pg. 8 - Still | pg. 9 - Envelopes of Yesterday | pg. 10 - A Tumbling Kite
pg. 11 - An Empty Town | pg. 12 - The Piper | pg. 13 - A House of Hopes and Dreams
pg. 14 - The Night People | pg. 15 - River of Life | pg. 16 - Photos of Ghosts
pg. 17 - Promenade the Puzzle

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Here we have a wonderful piece of story telling. This is another of the middle songs on the album. One of the very early songs. Like Under the Sky it was written in the late sixties and possesses a strong fairy tale quality. And just as Under the Sky seems to have been inspired or influenced by Blake ( Songs of Innocence ) The Piper is very reminiscent of a piece of classical literature.

"Beneath the tinsel twilight skies
A changeling child with cinnamon eyes
Wends his way to a secret glade
and plays his pipe in a serenade."

"Through wooded glades he wanders with dancing nymphs who foot it on some sheer cliff's edge, calling upon Pan, the shepherd-god, long-haired, unkempt. He has every snowy crest and the mountain peaks and rocky crests for his domain; hither and thither he goes through the close thickets, now lured by soft streams, and now he presses on amongst towering crags and climbs up to the highest peak that overlooks the flocks."

"In and out of the spectral trees
Between the starlight burnished leaves,
He strolls the speckled toadstool way
to join the elfin court in play."

"Often he courses through the glistening high mountains, and often on the shouldered hills he speeds along slaying wild beasts, this keen-eyed god.

"The brown owl hoots upon the oak
The foxes howl and the green frogs croak
As through the wood to a marvelous moon
He blows the notes of an elfin tune."

"Only at evening, as he returns from the chase, he sounds his note, playing sweet and low on his pipes of reed: not even she could excel him in melody -- that bird who in flower-laden spring pouring forth her lament utters honey-voiced song amid the leaves."

"Towards the moss-weed bridge he goes
Where burble-pebble water flows,
Across the meadow up the hill
And on the wind I hear him still . . ."

- Homeric Hymn to Pan

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