A Musical Instrument Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACCB ABADDB ABAEEB ABAFFB ABAEEB ABAGGB ABAHIB| What was he doing the great god Pan | A |
| Down in the reeds by the river | B |
| Spreading ruin and scattering ban | A |
| Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat | C |
| And breaking the golden lilies afloat | C |
| With the dragon fly on the river | B |
| - | |
| He tore out a reed the great god Pan | A |
| From the deep cool bed of the river | B |
| The limpid water turbidly ran | A |
| And the broken lilies a dying lay | D |
| And the dragon fly had fled away | D |
| Ere he brought it out of the river | B |
| - | |
| High on the shore sat the great god Pan | A |
| While turbidly flowed the river | B |
| And hacked and hewed as a great god can | A |
| With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed | E |
| Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed | E |
| To prove it fresh from the river | B |
| - | |
| He cut it short did the great god Pan | A |
| How tall it stood in the river | B |
| Then drew the pith like the heart of a man | A |
| Steadily from the outside ring | F |
| And notched the poor dry empty thing | F |
| In holes as he sat by the river | B |
| - | |
| This is the way laughed the great god Pan | A |
| Laughed while he sat by the river | B |
| The only way since gods began | A |
| To make sweet music they could succeed | E |
| Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed | E |
| He blew in power by the river | B |
| - | |
| Sweet sweet sweet O Pan | A |
| Piercing sweet by the river | B |
| Blinding sweet O great god Pan | A |
| The sun on the hill forgot to die | G |
| And the lilies revived and the dragon fly | G |
| Came back to dream on the river | B |
| - | |
| Yet half a beast is the great god Pan | A |
| To laugh as he sits by the river | B |
| Making a poet out of a man | A |
| The true gods sigh for the cost and pain | H |
| For the reed which grows nevermore again | I |
| As a reed with the reeds in the river | B |
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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