A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

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 sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man: 
The true gods sigh for the cost and the pain,—­
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.

MY HEART AND I

Enough! we’re tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us. 
The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason’s knife,
As heaven’s sweet life renews earth’s life
With which we’re tired, my heart and I.

     You see we’re tired, my heart and I.
        We dealt with books, we trusted men,
        And in our own blood drenched the pen,
     As if such colors could not fly. 
        We walked too straight for fortune’s end,
        We loved too true to keep a friend: 
     At last we’re tired, my heart and I.

     How tired we feel, my heart and I! 
        We seem of no use in the world;
        Our fancies hang gray and uncurled
     About men’s eyes indifferently;
        Our voice, which thrilled you so, will let
        You sleep; our tears are only wet: 
     What do we here, my heart and I?

     So tired, so tired, my heart and I! 
        It was not thus in that old time
        When Ralph sat with me ’neath the lime
     To watch the sunset from the sky. 
        “Dear love, you’re looking tired,” he said;
        I, smiling at him, shook my head: 
     ’Tis now we’re tired, my heart and I.