In “A Musical Instrument,” Elizabeth Barrett Browning uses imagery to explore the cycle of being emotionally damaged and then repaired to indicate that mental destruction can only be partially repaired. Eventually, contentedness is achieved; however, happiness will never be the same as it once was. The imagery of a “dragon-fly on the river” (6) and “golden lilies afloat” (5) are disrupted when the god Pan comes in, wrecking the landscape and “spreading ruin and scattering ban” (3). Although one would expect a god to perform good deeds, Pan is participating in an act of crushing the landscape. Similarly, people do not expect those they are fond of to do anything hurtful toward them, but at some point, loved ones will cause pain. Eventually,
