Elizabeth Barrett Browning - A Musical Instrument lyrics

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 flowed the river
And hacked and hewed as a great god can
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)
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man
Steadily from the outside ring
And notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sat by the river
'This is the way, ' laughed the great god Pan
(Laughed 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

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
Came back to dream on the river

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan
To laugh as he sit's by the river
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river