A Musical Instrument

A Musical Instrument

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

WHAT was he doing the great god Pan 

Down in the reeds by the river?

Spreading ruin and scattering ban 

Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat 

And breaking the golden lilies afloat 5

With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed the great god Pan 

From the deep cool bed of the river;

The limpid water turbidly ran 

And the broken lilies a-dying lay 10

And the dragon-fly had fled away 

Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan 

While turbidly flow'd the river;

And hack'd and hew'd as a great god can 15

With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed 

Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed

To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short did the great god Pan

(How tall it stood in the river!) 20

Then drew the pith like the heart of a man 

Steadily from the outside ring 

And notch'd the poor dry empty thing

In holes as he sat by the river.

'This is the way ' laugh'd the great god Pan 25

(Laugh'd while he sat by the river) 

'The only way since gods began

To make sweet music they could succeed.'

Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed 

He blew in power by the river. 30

Sweet sweet sweet O Pan!

Piercing sweet by the river!

Blinding sweet O great god Pan!

The sun on the hill forgot to die 

And the lilies revived and the dragon-fly 35

Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan 

To laugh as he sits by the river 

Making a poet out of a man:

The true gods sigh for the cost and pain— 40

For the reed which grows nevermore again

As a reed with the reeds of the river.