John Lyly (1555?-1606). Syrinx. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1907. The Book of Elizabethan Verse

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Syrinx

By John Lyly (1555?–1606)


PAN’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	5
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;	10
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,	15
That still my Syrinx’ lips I kiss.