Brownings Shorter Poems | Page 7

Idyls.
1883. Jocoseria.
1884. Ferishtah's Fancies.

1887. Parleyings with Certain People.
1890. Asolando.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Poetical Works of Robert Browning (The Macmillan Company,
ten vols.).
Browning's Complete Poetical Works, Cambridge Edition

(Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., one vol.).
Selections from Browning (Crowell & Co.,
one vol.).
Life of Browning, by William Sharp.
Life of Browning,
by Mrs. Sutherland Orr.
Introduction to Browning, by Hiram Corson.

Guide Book to Browning, by George Willis Cook.
Browning
Cyclopædia, by Edward Berdoe.
Literary Studies, by Walter Bagehot.

Studies in Literature, by Edward Dowden.
Makers of Literature, by
George Edward Woodberry (New York, 1901). Boston Browning
Society Papers.
A Handbook to the Works of Robert Browning, by
Mrs Sutherland Orr. Robert Browning: Personalia, by Edmund Gosse.

Life of the Spirit in Modern English Poets, by Vida D. Scudder.
Victorian Poetry, by Edmund Clarence Stedman.
Studies of the Mind
and Art of Robert Browning, by James Fotheringham. Browning
Society Papers.
Our Living Poets, by H. Buxton Forman.

Browning's Message to his Times, by Edward Berdoe (London, 1897).
Browning Studies, by Edward Berdoe (London, 1895).
The Poetry of
Robert Browning, by Stopford Brooke (New York, 1902). Browning,
Poet and Man, by E.L. Cary (New York, 1899).
(An extensive
bibliography, biographical and critical, is given in the
Appendix to Sharp's Life of Browning; London, Walter Scott, 1890.)

THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN
A CHILD'S STORY
_(Written for, and inscribed to W. M. the
Younger)_
I
Hamelin° town's in Brunswick, °1 By famous Hanover city;
The river
Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its walls on either side;
A pleasanter
spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five
hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin,

was a pity.
II
Rats! 10 They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies
in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the
soup from the cooks' own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats.

Made nests inside men's Sunday hats.
And even spoiled the
women's chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and
squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats. 20
III
At last the people in a body
To the Town Hall came flocking:
"'Tis
clear," cried they, "our Mayor's a noddy;
And as for our Corporation,
shocking
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that
can't or won't determine
What's best to rid us of our vermin!
You
hope, because you're old and obese,
To find in the furry civic robe
ease!
Rouse up, sirs! give your brains a racking 30 To find the
remedy we're lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!"
At
this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.
IV
An hour they sat in council;
At length the Mayor broke silence:

"For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell,
I wish I were a mile hence!

It's easy to bid one rack one's brain--
I'm sure my poor head aches
again, 40 I've scratched it so, and all in vain.
Oh for a trap, a trap, a
trap!"
Just as he said this, what should hap
At the chamber door but
a gentle tap?
"Bless us," cried the Mayor, "what's that?"
(With the
Corporation as he sat,
Looking little, though wondrous fat;
Nor
brighter was his eye, nor moister
Than a too-long-opened oyster,

Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous 50 For a plate of turtle,
green and glutinous)
"Only a scraping of shoes on the mat?

Anything like the sound of a rat
Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!"

V
"Come in!"--the Mayor cried, looking bigger:
And in did come the
strangest figure!
His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of
yellow and half of red,
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp
blue eyes, each like a pin, 60 With light loose hair, yet swarthy skin,

No tuft on cheek, nor beard on chin,
But lips where smiles went out
and in;
There was no guessing his kith and kin:
And nobody could
enough admire
The tall man and his quaint attire.
Quoth one: "It's
as my great grandsire,
Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone,

Had walked his way from his painted tombstone!"
VI
He advanced to the council-table: 70 And, "Please your honors," said
he, "I'm able,
By means of a secret charm, to draw
All creatures
living beneath the sun,
That creep or swim or fly or run,
After me
so as you never saw!
And I chiefly use my charm
On creatures that
do people harm,
The mole and toad and newt and viper;
And people
call me the Pied Piper."
(And here they noticed round his neck 80 A
scarf of red and yellow stripe,
To match with his coat of self-same
cheque:
And at the scarf's end hung a pipe;
And his fingers, they
noticed, were ever straying,
As if impatient to be playing
Upon this
pipe, as low it dangled
Over his vesture so old-fangled.)
"Yet," said
he, "poor piper as I am,
In Tartary I freed the Cham,°
°89
Last June, from his