StoryTitle("caps", "A Musical Instrument") ?>
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.
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"The great god sighed for the cost and the pain.\"", "") ?>
PoemEnd() ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "What was he doing, the great god Pan,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Down in the reeds by the river?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Spreading ruin and scattering ban,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And breaking the golden lilies afloat", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "With the dragon-fly on the river.", "") ?>
PagePoem(276, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "From the deep cool bed of the river:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The limpid water turbidly ran,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the broken lilies a-dying lay,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the dragon-fly had fled away,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Ere he brought it out of the river.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "High on the shore sat the great god Pan,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "While turbidly flow'd the river;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And hack'd and hew'd as a great god can,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "To prove it fresh from the river.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He cut it short, did the great god Pan", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "(How tall it stood in the river!),", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Steadily from the outside ring,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And notched the poor dry empty thing", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "In holes, as he sat by the river.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"This is the way,\" laugh'd the great god Pan", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "(Laugh'd while he sat by the river),", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"The only way, since gods began", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To make sweet music, they could succeed.\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "He blew in power by the river.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Piercing sweet by the river!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The sun on the hill forgot to die,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the lilies reviv'd, and the dragon-fly", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Came back to dream on the river.", "") ?>
PagePoem(277, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "To laugh as he sits by the river,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Making a poet out of a man:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For the reed which grows nevermore again", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "As a reed with the reeds in the river.", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("100", SmallCapsText("Elizabeth Barrett Browning.")) ?>
PoemEnd() ?>