Excerpt
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 afloatWith 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 a leaf indeedTo 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 thingIn 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 beganTo 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-flyCame 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 againAs a reed with the reeds in the river. Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
THE VOYAGE. We left behind the painted buoyThat tosses at the harbor-mouth:And madly danced our hearts with joy,As fast we fleeted to the south:How fresh was every sight and soundOn open main or winding shore!We knew the merry world was round,And we might sail forevermore. Warm broke the breeze against the brow,Dry sang the tackle, sang the sail:The lady's-head upon the prowCaught the shrill salt, and sheered the gale.The broad seas swelled to meet the keel,And swept behind: so quick the run,We felt the good ship shake and reel,We seemed to sail into the sun! 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 robeOf twilight slowly downward drawn,As through the slumber of the globeAgain we dashed into the dawn! New stars all night above the brimOf waters lightened into view;They climbed as quickly, for the rimChanged every moment as we flew.Far ran the naked moon acrossThe houseless ocean's heaving field,Or flying shone, the silver bossOf her own halo's dusky shield; The peaky islet shifted shapes,High towns on hills were dimly seen,We passed long lines of northern capesAnd dewy northern meadows green.We came to warmer waves, and deepAcross the boundless east we drove,Where those long swells of breaker sweepThe nutmeg rocks and isles of clove. By peaks that flamed, or, all in shade,Gloomed the low coast and quivering brineWith ashy rains, that spreading madeFantastic plume or sable pine;By sands and steaming flats, and floodsOf mighty mouth, we scudded fast,And hills and scarlet-mingled woodsGlowed for a moment as we passed. O hundred shores of happy climes,How swiftly streamed ye by the bark!At times the whole sea burned, at timesWith wakes of fire we tore the dark;At times a carven craft would shootFrom havens hid in fairy bowers,With naked limbs and flowers and fruit,But we nor paused for fruits nor flowers. For one fair Vision ever fledDown the waste waters day and night,And still we followed where she ledIn hope to gain upon her flight....