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THE BROOK

ALFRED TENNYSON

NOTE TO THE PUPIL. Alfred Tennyson, the most popular poet of his time, was born in England in 1810. If you like poetry, you will read "Locksley Hall," "The May Queen," "The Talking Oak," many selections from "The Princess," and "Maud," with much pleasure.

I

COME from haunts of coot and hern,

I make a sudden sally,

And sparkle out among the fern,

To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret,
By many a field and fallow,

And many a fairy foreland set

With willow weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling.

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me as I travel,

With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel.

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;

I linger by my shingly bars;

I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN

ROBERT BROWNING

NOTE TO THE PUPIL. Robert Browning was born in England in 1812, and died in 1889. He has written but little that you would care for now. He is not a popular poet like Longfellow, and probably the number of his admirers will always

be comparatively small. You would enjoy "How We Carried the Good News from Ghent to Aix."

H

AMELIN town's in Brunswick

By famous Hanover city;

The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern 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.

Rats!

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 cook's own ladles, Spilt 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.

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
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.

An hour they sat in counsel,

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

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I've scratched it so, and all in vain.
O 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
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!"

"Come in!" cried the Mayor, 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,
And light loose hair, yet swarthy 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 this way from his painted tombstone!"

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