[Gutenberg 2619] • The Home Book of Verse — Volume 1

Excerpt: ...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 'twas a lost endeavor, 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 Street - Where any one playing on pipe or tabor Was sure for the future to lose his labor. Nor suffered they hostlery 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. XV So, Willy, let me and you be wipers Of scores out with all men - especially pipers! And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice, If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise! Robert Browning 1812-1889 THE GLAD EVANGEL A CAROL He came all so still Where His mother was, As dew in April That falleth on the grass. He came all so still Where His mother lay, As dew in April That falleth on the spray. He came all so still To His mother's bower, As dew in April That falleth on the flower. Mother and maiden Was never none but she! Well might such a lady God's mother be. Unknown...