The Giant Book of Poetry

by William H. Roetzheim, Editor

  the bough of cherries some officious fool

  broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

  she rode with round the terrace—all and each

  would draw from her alike the approving speech,

  or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked

  somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked

  my gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

  with anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame

  this sort of trifling? Even had you skill

  in speech— (which I have not) —to make your will

  Quite clear to such a one, and say, “Just this

  or that in you disgusts me; here you miss

  or there exceed the mark”—and if she let

  herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

  her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse

  —e’en then would be some stooping; and I choose

  never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,

  whene’er I passed her; but who passed without

  much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

  then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

  as if alive. Will ’t please you rise? We’ll meet

  the company below, then. I repeat,

  the Count your master’s known munificence

  is ample warrant that no just pretence

  of mine for dowry will be disallowed;

  though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed

  at starting is my object. Nay, we’ll go

  together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,

  taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

  which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me.

  Never the Time and the Place1

  Never the time and the place

  and the loved one all together!

  This path—how soft to pace!

  This May—what magic weather!

  Where is the loved one’s face?

  In a dream that loved one’s face meets mine,

  but the house is narrow, the place is bleak

  where, outside, rain and wind combine

  with a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,

  with a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,

  with a malice that marks each word, each sign!

  O enemy sly and serpentine,

  uncoil thee from the waking man!

  Do I hold the Past

  thus firm and fast

  yet doubt if the Future hold I can?

  This path so soft to pace shall lead

  thro’ the magic of May to herself indeed!

  Or narrow if needs the house must be,

  outside are the storms and strangers: we

  oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,—

  I and she!

  Porphyria’s Lover1

  The rain set early in tonight,

  the sullen wind was soon awake,

  it tore the elm-tops down for spite,

  and did its worst to vex the lake:

  I listened with heart fit to break.

  When glided in Porphyria; straight

  she shut the cold out and the storm,

  and kneeled and made the cheerless grate

  blaze up, and all the cottage warm;

  which done, she rose, and from her form

  withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,

  and laid her soiled gloves by, untied

  her hat and let the damp hair fall,

  and, last, she sat down by my side

  and called me. When no voice replied,

  she put my arm about her waist,

  and made her smooth white shoulder bare,

  and all her yellow hair displaced,

  and, stooping, made my cheek lie there,

  and spread, o’er all, her yellow hair,

  murmuring how she loved me—she

  too weak, for all her heart’s endeavor,

  to set its struggling passion free

  from pride, and vainer ties dissever,

  and give herself to me forever.

  But passion sometimes would prevail,

  nor could tonight’s gay feast restrain

  a sudden thought of one so pale

  for love of her, and all in vain:

  so, she was come through wind and rain.

  Be sure I looked up at her eyes

  happy and proud; at last l knew

  porphyria worshiped me: surprise

  made my heart swell, and still it grew

  while l debated what to do.

  That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

  perfectly pure and good: I found

  a thing to do, and all her hair

  in one long yellow string l wound

  three times her little throat around,

  and strangled her. No pain felt she;

  I am quite sure she felt no pain.

  As a shut bud that holds a bee,

  I warily oped her lids: again

  laughed the blue eyes without a stain.

  And I untightened next the tress

  about her neck; her cheek once more

  blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:

  I propped her head up as before,

  only, this time my shoulder bore

  her head, which droops upon it still:

  the smiling rosy little head,

  so glad it has its utmost will,

  that all it scorned at once is fled,

  and I, its love, am gained instead!

  Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how

  her darling one wish would be heard.

  And thus we sit together now,

  and all night long we have not stirred,

  and yet God has not said a word!

  The Confessional1

  It is a lie—their Priests, their Pope,

  their Saints, their…all their fear or hope

  are lies, and lies—there! through my door

  and ceiling, there! and walls and floor.

  There, lies, they lie—shall still be hurled

  till spite of them I reach the world!

  You think priests just and holy men!

  Before they put me in this den

  I was a human creature too,

  with flesh and blood like one of you,

  a girl that laughed in beauty’s pride

  like lilies in your world outside.

  I had a lover, shame avaunt!

  This poor wrenched body, grim and gaunt,

  was kissed all over till it burned,

  by lips the truest love e’er turned

  his heart’s own tint: one night they kissed

  my soul out in a burning mist

  so, next day when the accustomed train

  of things grew round my sense again,

  “That is a sin,” I said: and slow

  with downcast eyes to church I go,

  and pass to the confession-chair,

  and tell the old mild father there.

  But when I falter Beltran’s name,

  “Ha?” quoth the father; “much I blame

  the sin; yet whereof idly grieve?

  Despair not, strenuously retrieve!

  Nay, I will turn this love of thine

  to lawful love, almost divine;

  for he is young, and led astray,

  this Beltran, and he schemes, men say,

  to change the laws of church and state;

  so, thine shall be an angel’s fate

  who, ere the thunder breaks, should roll

  its cloud away and save his soul.”

  “For, when he lies upon thy breast,

  thou mayst demand and be possessed

  of all his plans, and next day steal

  to me, and all those plans reveal,

  that I and every priest, to purge

  his soul may fast and use the scourge.”

  That father’s beard was long and white,

  with love and truth his brow seemed brigh
t;

  I went back; all on fire with joy,

  and, that same evening, bade the boy

  tell me, as lovers should, heart-free,

  something to prove his love of me.

  He told me what he would not tell

  for hope of heaven or fear of hell;

  and I lay listening in such pride!

  And, soon as he had left my side,

  tripped to the church by morning-light

  to save his soul in his despite.

  I told the father all his schemes

  who were his comrades, what their dreams;

  “And now make haste,” I said, “to pray

  the one spot from his soul away;

  to-night he comes, but not the same

  will look.” At night he never came.

  Nor next night; on the after-morn,

  I went forth with a strength new-born.

  The church was empty; something drew

  my steps into the street; I knew

  it led me to the market-place;

  where, lo, on high, the fathers face!

  That horrible back scaffold dressed,

  that stapled block…God sink the rest!

  That head strapped back, that blinding vest,

  those knotted hands and naked breast,

  till near one busy hangman pressed,

  and, on the neck these arms caressed…

  no part in aught they hope or fear!

  No heaven with them, no hell! - and here,

  no earth, not so much space as pens

  my body in their worst of dens

  but shall bear God and man my cry,

  lies—lies, again—and still, they lie!

  The Pied Piper of Hamelin1

  A Child’s Story

  Hamelin 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,

  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

  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 sate in council,

  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

  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,

  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!” —the Mayor cried, 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 skin,

  no tuft on cheek nor beard on 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!”

  He advanced to the council-table:

  and, “Please your honors,” said he, “I’m able,

  by means of a secret charm, to draw

  all creatures living beneath the sun,

  that creep or swim or fly or run,

  after me so as you never saw!

  And I chiefly use my charm

  on creatures that do people harm,

  the mole and toad and newt and viper;

  and people call me the Pied Piper.”

  (And here they noticed round his neck

  a scarf of red and yellow stripe,

  to match with his coat of the selfsame cheque;

  and at the scarf’s end hung a pipe;

  and his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying

  as if impatient to be playing

  upon this pipe, as low it dangled

  over his vesture so old-fangled.)

  “Yet,” said he, “poor piper as I am,

  in Tartary I freed the Cham,

  last June, from his huge swarms of gnats;

  I eased in Asia the Nizam

  of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats;

  and, as for what your brain bewilders,

  if I can rid your town of rats

  will you give me a thousand guilders?”

  “One? fifty thousand!” —was the exclamation

  of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.

  Into the street the Piper stepped,

  smiling first a little smile,

  as if he knew what magic slept

  in his Quiet pipe the while;

  then, like a musical adept,

  to blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,

  and green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled

  like a candle flame where salt is sprinkled;

  and ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,

  you heard as if an army muttered;

  and the muttering grew to a grumbling;

  and the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;

  and out of the houses the rats came tumbling.

  Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,

  brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats,

  grave old plodders, gay young friskers,

  fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,

  cocking tails and pricking whiskers,

  families by tens and dozens,

  brothers, sisters, husbands, wives—

  followed the Piper for their lives.

  From street to street he piped advancing,

  and step for step they followed dancing,

  until they came to the river Weser,

  wherein all plunged and perished!

  —save one who, stout a Julius Caesar,

  swam across and lived to carry

  (as he, t
he manuscript he cherished)

  to Rat-land home his commentary:

  which was, “At the first shrill notes of the pipe

  I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,

  and putting apples, wondrous ripe,

  into a cider-press’s gripe:

  and a moving away of pickle-tub-boards,

  and a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards,

  and a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks,

  and a breaking the hoops of butter-casks;

  and it seemed as if a voice

  (sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery

  is breathed) called out ‘Oh, rats, rejoice!

  The world is grown to one vast drysaltery!

  So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,

  breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!’

  And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon,

  all ready staved, like a great sun shone

  glorious scarce and inch before me,

  just as me thought it said ‘Come, bore me!’

  — found the Weser rolling o’er me.”

  You should have heard the Hamelin people

  ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple.

  “Go,” cried the Mayor, “and get long poles!

  Poke out the nests and block up the holes!

  Consult with carpenters and builders,

  and leave in our town not even a trace

  of the rats!” —when suddenly, up the face

  of the Piper perked in the market-place,

  with a, “First, if you please, my thousand guilders!”

  A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;

  so did the Corporation too.

  For council dinners made rare havoc

  with Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;

  and half the money would replenish

  their cellar’s biggest butt with Rhenish.

  To pay this sum to a wandering fellow

  with a gypsy coat of red and yellow!

  “Beside,” quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink,

  “Our business was done at the river’s brink;

  we saw with our eyes the vermin sink,

  and what’s dead can’t come to life, I think.

  So, friend, we’re not the folks to shrink

  from the duty of giving you something for drink,

  and a matter of money to put in your poke;

  but, as for the guilders, what we spoke

  of them, as you very well know, was in joke.

  Beside, our losses have made us thrifty.

  A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!”

  The Piper’s face fell, and he cried

  “No trifling! I can’t wait, beside!