An Instrument of Music

What was he doing down among the reeds by the river, the mighty deity Pan?

Ruining and spreading the ban,

With goat hoofs splashing and paddling, and splitting the golden flowers adrift

On the river, there's a dragonfly.

He tore a reed from the river's deep cold bed, the mighty deity Pan:

The clear water turbidly rushed, and the dying shattered lilies lay.

And the dragonfly had taken off.

He had to bring it out of the water first.

While the river flowed turbidly, the great god Pan stood high on the bank, hacking and hewing as only a big god can, with his hard dreary steel at the patient reed, until there was not a hint of a leaf to prove it fresh from the river.

The great god Pan cut it short (how tall it stood in the river! ), then drew the pith, like a man's heart,

As he sat by the river, he steadily moved from the outside ring, and notched the wretched dry empty item in holes.

"This is the only way, since gods began to make wonderful music, they could succeed," laughed the great god Pan (as he sat by the river).

Then he blew powerfully alongside the river, sinking his mouth to a hole in the reed.

O Pan, sweet, sweet, sweet!

sweet by the piercing river!

O wonderful god Pan, you are blindingly sweet!

The sun on the hill forgot to set, and the lilies bloomed again, and the dragonfly returned to the river to dream.

The great god Pan, however, is partly a beast, laughing as he sits by the river, transforming a man into a poet:

The true gods weep for the price and suffering,— for the reed that will never grow again.

As a reed among the river's reeds.