SYRINX

by: John Lyly (1553-1606)

      AN'S Syrinx was a girl indeed,
      Though now she's turned into a reed;
      From that dear reed Pan's pipe does come,
      A pipe that strikes Apollo dumb;
      Nor flute, nor lute, nor gittern can
      So chant it as the pipe of Pan:
      Cross-gartered swains and dairy girls,
      With faces smug and round as pearls,
      When Pan's shrill pipe begins to play,
      With dancing wear out night and day;
      The bagpipe's drone his hum lays by,
      When Pan sounds up his minstrelsy;
      His minstrelsy! O base! this quill,
      Which at my mouth with wind I fill,
      Puts me in mind, though her I miss,
      That still my Syrinx' lips I kiss.

"Syrinx" was originally published in Lyly's Midas (1592).

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