style="font-size:15px;"> 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.[page xxviii]
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.)
[page 1]
THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN°
A CHILD'S STORY
(Written for, and inscribed to W. M. the Younger)
I
°1Hamelin° town's in Brunswick,
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
10Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,[page 2]
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
20In fifty different sharps and flats.
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!
30Rouse up, sirs! give your brains a racking
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;[page 3]
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—
40I'm sure my poor head aches again,
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,
50Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous
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:[page 4]
And in did come the strangest figure!
