A friend introduced me to The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame, published in 1908.  It is a children’s story of the adventures of Mole, Rat, Toad and Badger.  After reading the short book I learned the story had been a favorite of my youngest daughter.  Kenneth Grahame, a banker, served as the Secretary of the Bank of England.

I offer for your pleasure from Lady Bird Children’s Classics chapter 7 of The Wind In The Willows, retold for easy reading. (This is an abridged version)

7. The Pipes of Pan

Meanwhile, on the River Bank, everyone was worried.  Otter’s baby son was missing from home.  He had never been away so long before. Search parties went out to look for him, but no one could find him anywhere.

Mole and Ratty were very upset.

“Otter is watching the ford,” said Ratty.  It’s where he taught him to swim.  It was little Portly’s favorite place.  Otter thought he might come back there.  He has been waiting there all night.”

It was getting towards dawn when mole said, “Come on, Rat, I can’t sleep for thinking of him.  Let’s go back and look for him ourselves.”

So they took their boat and sculled quietly up the river, as the sun came up and the birds began to twitter.  Everything smelled fresh and green.

They went further up the river than they had ever been before, and came to a little island.

“Listen!” said Ratty, shipping his oars.  “Do you hear the music?”  Mole rowed closer.  He could not hear anything.  Ratty’s eyes were shining.  He seemed very far away, as if he were under a spell.

“Go closer!” said Ratty.  They moored their boat and made their way through the reeds to the grassy bank.  Now Mole could hear the music, too.

It was piping, very high and clear.  It seemed to draw the two animals towards a little clearing under the trees.  They felt as if they were in some holy place. 

Then they saw the Protector of all animals sitting under a tree, with the Pan pipes in his hand.  They saw his horns and his strong, kind face, brown chest and shaggy goat limbs.  Nestled between his hooves slept the podgy childish form of the baby otter.

For one second the animals saw this vision, and heard the music.  Then suddenly it was gone, and the glade was empty.  The baby otter awoke and with whimpering cries searched the clearing for its lost friend.

Mole and Ratty took Portly back with them to the ford where the Otter waited so patiently.  For a little way off they watched the happy meeting.  Then they went home, wondering, and feeling that something very special had happened to them that day.  But they could not remember it.

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And this from the East Coker poem written by T. S. Eliot.

                              In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie—
A dignified and commodiois sacrament.
Two and two, necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire
Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,
Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn. Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the constellations
The time of milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.

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“What is the point?” you are certain to ask.

Always, always — listen for the music.