A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.

“A 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.

“The great god sighed for the cost and the pain.”

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 flow’d the river;
    And hack’d and hew’d as a great god can,
    With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
    Till there was not a 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!),
    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,” laugh’d the great god Pan
      (Laugh’d 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 reviv’d, 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 pain,—­
    For the reed which grows nevermore again
      As a reed with the reeds in the river.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

 THE BRIDES OF ENDERBY.

“The Brides of Enderby,” by Jean Ingelow (1830-97).  This poem is very dramatic, and the music of the refrain has done much to make it popular.  But the pathos is that which endears it.

    The old mayor climb’d the belfry tower,
      The ringers ran by two, by three;
   “Pull, if ye never pull’d before;
      Good ringers, pull your best,” quoth he. 
   “Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells! 
    Ply all your changes, all your swells,
      Play uppe, ‘The Brides of Enderby.’”

    Men say it was a stolen tyde—­
      The Lord that sent it, He knows all;
    But in myne ears doth still abide
      The message that the bells let fall: 
    And there was naught of strange, beside
    The flight of mews and peewits pied
      By millions crouch’d on the old sea wall.