Browning's Shorter Poems. Robert Browning

Caliban upon Setebos. Confessions. May and Death. Prospice. Youth and Art. A Face. A Likeness. Mr. Sludge, "The Medium." Apparent Failure. Epilogue. 1868–69. The Ring and the Book. 1871. Balaustion's Adventure. 1871. Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau. 1872. Fifine at the Fair. 1873. Red Cotton Night-Cap Country. 1875. Aristophanes' Apology. l875. The Inn Album. 1876. Pacchiarotto, and other Poems (including Natural Magic and Hervé Riel). 1877. The Agamemnon of Æschylus. 1878. La Saisiaz, and The Two Poets of Croisic. 1879–80. Dramatic Idyls. 1883. Jocoseria. 1884. Ferishtah's Fancies. 1887. Parleyings with Certain People. 1890. Asolando.

      [page xxvii]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

       Table of Contents

      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.[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°

       Table of Contents

A CHILD'S STORY

       Table of Contents

      (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,