A Musical Instrument

7He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,

8From the deep cool bed of the river:

9The limpid water turbidly ran,

10And the broken lilies a-dying lay,

11And the dragon-fly had fled away,

12Ere he brought it out of the river.

13High on the shore sat the great god Pan,

14While turbidly flowed the river;

15And hacked and hewed as a great god can,

16With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,

17Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed

18To prove it fresh from the river.

19He cut it short, did the great god Pan,

20(How tall it stood in the river!)

21Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,

22Steadily from the outside ring,

23And notched the poor dry empty thing

24In holes, as he sat by the river.

25"This is the way," laughed the great god Pan,

26(Laughed while he sat by the river)

27"The only way, since gods began

28To make sweet music, they could succeed."

29Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,

30He blew in power by the river.

31Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!

32Piercing sweet by the river!

33Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!

34The sun on the hill forgot to die,

35And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly

36Came back to dream on the river.

37Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,

38To laugh as he sits by the river,

39Making a poet out of a man:

40The true gods sigh for the cost and pain—

41For the reed which grows nevermore again

42As a reed with the reeds in the river.