The author sees an organ-grinder playing his gay tunes in Wall Street,
New York, among the buildings where enormous financial transactions are
carried on. He (the author) imagines this wandering minstrel to be Pan
himself, assuming a modern form. Read the notes carefully for what is
said about Pan. Notice, in the poem, how skillfully the author brings
out the contrast between the easy-going days of ancient Greece and the
busy, rushing times of modern America. Of what value is the word
_serenely_ in the first stanza? What is the "curbstone war"? Do you
think the old-fashioned Pan's pipe is common now? Could a man play an
organ and a pipe at the same time? Why is the city spoken of as
"sordid"? What is the "civic ear"? In the description of the player, how
is the idea of his being Pan emphasized? How was it that the bulls and
bears drew together? In plain words who were the people whom the author
describes under Greek names? Show how aptly the mythological characters
are fitted to modern persons. Read carefully what is said about the
power of music, in the stanza beginning "O heart of Nature." Who was the
man in blue? Why did he interfere? Why is the organ-grinder called a
"vagrant demigod"? What was it that the author doubted? What is meant
here by "Great Pan is dead"? Does the author mean more than the mere
words seem to express? Do you think that people are any happier in these
commercial times than they were in ancient Greece? After you have
studied the poem and mastered all the references, read the poem through,
thinking of its meaning and its lively measure.

Read Mrs. Browning's poem, _A Musical Instrument_, which is about Pan
and his pipe of reeds.


COLLATERAL READINGS