WHA Down in the reeds by the river? Spreading ruin and scattering ban, Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, Ere he brought it out of the river. High on the shore sat the great god Pan, And hacked and hewed as a great god can, 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 "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! Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. THE VOYAGE. 13 THE VOYAGE. E left behind the painted buoy WR That tosses at the harbor-mouth : Warm broke the breeze against the brow, Caught the shrill salt, and sheered the gale. How oft we saw the sun retire, And burn the threshold of the night, Fall from his ocean-lane of fire, And sleep beneath his pillared light! How oft the purple-skirted robe Of twilight slowly downward drawn, New stars all night above the brim |