A Musical Instrument

What was he doing
The Great God Pan
Down in the reeds by the river
Spreading ruin and scattering ban
Stomping and splashing with the hooves of a goat
Breaking the golden lilies afloat
And the dragonfly on the river

He tore out a reed
The Great God Pan
From the deep cool bed of the river
The limpid waters turbidly ran
And the broken lilies a-dying lay
And the dragonfly 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 he hacked and hewed
As a Great God can
With his hard bleak steel
At the patient reed
Til there was no sign of a 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
And he tore the pith like the heart of 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 as he sat by the river
The only way since gods began
To make sweet music they could succeed
And putting 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 dragonfly
Came back to dream on the river

Yet half a beast is the
Great God Pan
To laugh as he sits by the river
Making a poet out of a man
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain
And the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river