Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“ 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 that grows nevermore again
⁠As a reed with the reeds in the river. ”

“ 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? ”