XII

Once more he stepped into the street,
And to his lips again

Laid his long pipe of smooth straight

cane;

And ere he blew three notes (such sweet

Soft notes as yet musician's cunning
Never gave the enraptured air)
There was a rustling that seemed like a
bustling

Of merry crowds justling at pitcl.ing and hustling;

Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,

Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering,

And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scattering,

Out came the children running.
All the little boys and girls,
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and
laughter.

XIII

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood

As if they were changed into blocks of wood,

Unable to move a step, or cry
To the children merrily skipping by,
-Could only follow with the eye
That joyous crowd at the Piper's back.
But how the Mayor was on the rack,
And the wretched Council's bosoms beat,
As the Piper turned from the High Street
To where the Weser rolled its waters
Right in the way of their sons and daugh-
ters !

However, he turned from South to West, And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,

And after him the children pressed;
Great was the joy in every breast.
"He never can cross that mighty top!
He's forced to let the piping drop,
And we shall see our children stop!"
When, lo, as they reached the mountain-
side,

A wondrous portal opened wide.
As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;
And the Piper advanced and the children

followed,

And when all were in to the very last, The door in the mountain-side shut fast.

Did I say all? No! One was lame, And could not dance the whole of the

way;

And in after years if you would blame
His sadness, he was used to say,--
"It 's dull in our town since my play
mates left!

I can't forget that I'm bereft
Of all the pleasant sights they see,
Which the Piper also promised me.
For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
Joining the town and just at hand,
Where waters gushed and fruit-trees
grew

And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new;
The sparrows were brighter than pea-
cocks here,

And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
And honey-bees had lost their stings,
And horses were born with eagles'

Alas, alas for Hamelin !

There came into many a burgher's pate A text which says that heaven's gate Opes to the rich at as easy rate

As the needle's eye takes a camel in!
The Mayor sent East, West, North and
South,

To offer the Piper, by word of mouth,
Wherever it was men's lot to find him,
Silver and gold to his heart's content,
If he'd only return the way he went,
And bring the children behind him.
But when they saw 't was a lost en-
deavor,

And Piper and dancers were gone forever,

They made a decree that lawyers never

Should think their records dated duly If, after the day of the month and year, These words did not as well appear, "And so long after what happened here On the Twenty-second of July, Thirteen hundred and seventy-six :" And the better in memory to fix The place of the children's last retreat, They called it, the Pied Piper's StreetWhere any one playing on pipe or tabor Was sure for the future to lose his labor.

Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern To shock with mirth a street so solemn ;

But opposite the place of the cavern

They wrote the story on a column. And on the great church-window painted The same, to make the world acquainted How their children were stolen away, And there it stands to this very day. And I must not omit to say

That in Transylvania there's a tribe
Of alien people who ascribe
The outlandish ways and dress

On which their neighbors lay such stress, To their fathers and mothers having risen

Out of some subterraneous prison
Into which they were trepanned
Long time ago in a mighty band

Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,
But how or why, they don't understand.

Dear Pilgrim, art thou for the East indeed?

Go!-saying ever as thou dost proceed, That I. French Rudel, choose for my device

A sunflower outspread like a sacrifice Before its idol. See! These inexpert And hurried fingers could not fail to hurt

The woven picture; 't is a woman's skill Indeed; but nothing baffled me, so, ill Or well, the work is finished. Say, men feed

On songs I sing, and therefore bask the bees

On my flower's breast as on a platform broad:

But as the flower's concern is not for these

But solely for the sun, so men applaud In vain this Rudel, he not looking here But to the East-the East! Go, say this, Pilgrim dear! 1842.

THERE'S A WOMAN LIKE A DEWDROP

[FROM A BLOT IN THE SCUTCHEON] THERE'S a woman like a dewdrop, she's so purer than the purest; And her noble heart 's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's the surest: And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre

Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster, Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: Then her voice's music .. call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble! And this woman says, "My days were sunless and my nights were moonless,

Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless,

If you loved me not!" And I who—(ah, for words of flame!) adore her, Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her

I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me,

And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me! 1843.

THE LOST LEADER'

JUST for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coatFound the one gift of which fortune bereft us,

Lost all the others she lets us devote; They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,

So much was theirs who so little allowed:

How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags--were they purple, his heart had been proud!

1 Browning admitted that in writing this poem he had Wordsworth in mind, but insisted that he did not mean it as an exact portrait of Wordsworth. Browning's mature judgment on the matter is best expressed in his own words: "I did in my hasty youth presume to use the great and venerated personality of Wordsworth as a sort of painter's model; one from which this or the other particular feature may be selected and turned to account; had I intended more, above all, such a boldness as portraying the entire man, I should not have talked about 'handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon.' These never influenced the change of politics in the great poet, whose defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a regular face-about of his special party, was to my juvenile apprehension, and even mature consideration, an event to deplore." See also Mrs. Orr's Browning (Life and Letters), I, 191. Compare Shelley's early Sonnet

We shall march

--

prospering, not through his presence;

Songs may inspirit us,-not from his lyre;

Deeds will be done,-while he boasts his quiescence,

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:

Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,

One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels,

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!

Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!

There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,

Forced praise on our part-the glimmer of twilight,

Never glad confident morning again! Best fight on well, for we taught himstrike gallantly,

Menace our heart ere we master his

Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault 's not in her.

We'll remember at Aix "-for one heard the quick wheeze

Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,

And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,

As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; [laugh, The broad sun above laughed a pitiless 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;

Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,

And "Gallop," gasped Joris," for Aix is in sight!

"How they'll greet us!"—and all in a moment his roan

Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;

And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight

Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,

With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,

And with circles of red for his eyesockets' rim.

THE gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratchi
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys
and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each! 1845.

PARTING AT MORNING

ROUND the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:

And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me. 1845.