The God of Music dwelleth out of doors.
EDITH M. THOMAS.
A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.
"A Musical Instrument" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61). This
poem is the supreme masterpiece of Mrs. Browning. The prime thought in
it is the sacrifice and pain that must go to make a poet of any genius.
"The great god sighed for the cost and the pain."
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
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,
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,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.
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