Welcome back to the Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Wednesday, March 10th,

2000, 21. Today's poem is by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She was born on March 6th of 1806 and then died

in 1861 on June 29th. She was, of course, a Victorian-era poet who was pretty popular during her lifetime in both Britain and

the United States, which is sometimes a bit rare among the poets who last. Many of them were,

like, say, Keats, not well-known during their time. So it's always interesting to think about

what made a poet popular, what made them stand out during their lifetime.

Of course, her birthday was just a couple of days ago, and I wanted to make sure that I shared one of her poems in recognition of that in commemoration of her birthday on the sixth.

And so the poem that I'm going to read today is called a musical instrument.

It's got seven,

six-line stanzas with lots of repetition. And so it's a great one to read aloud and a great one to memorize if you're interested in doing such a thing like that. Okay, here is a musical instrument.

One. What was he doing the great god, down on the reeds by the river?

Spreading ruin and scattering ban, splashing and paddling with hose of a goat,

and breaking the golden lilies afloat with the dragonfly on the river?

Two.

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 dragonfly had fled

away ere he brought it out of the river.

Three. High on the shores hit the great God Pan while ere he brought it out of the river. 3.

High on the shores hit 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, indeed,

...