The Pied-Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning

This poem was published in the collection Dramatic Lyrics, 1842. It is a classic children's story told here in Browning's easily accessible rhyming verse. Though many are familiar with the story of a town overrun with rats which are then dispersed by the piper's notes and the subsequent loss of the town's children by the piper as he is not paid by the greedy mayor, there are perhaps less who have read Browning's interpretation. Unlike the stuffy, Romanticized verse that was typical of the 1800s, Browning writes lucid verse that would easily be understood. The poem itself is dedicated to 'W.M the Younger', that is the son of theatre owner and friend of Browning, William McReady.
The dividing up of the poem into stanzas breaks the narrative into episodic chunks, avoiding the long-windedness of other narrative poems such as Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. Though the story itself may be taken to be allegorical of poor living conditions and authoritative greed, Browning maintains a charm and innocence through his playful and captivating language. The second stanza evokes immediacy with the single word line: 'Rats!' (l.10), this sets the scene for the proceeding narrative:

'They fought the dogs and killed the cats,

And bit the babies in the cradle,

And ate the cheeses out of the vats,

And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles' (ll. 11-14)

This tale of rat infestation could potentially have been a grotesque account of poverty and disease, but instead Browning creates a fairy-tale atmosphere for 'Hamelin's town in Brunswick/ By famous Hanover city'

The mysterious appearance of the piper dressed like a gypsy creates an unlikely hero figure although this is ultimately not his role as he exacts his revenge by kidnapping the town's children after being refused 'the thousand gilder' for ridding the town of rats. Nevertheless, the Pied-Piper of Hamelin serves as both an endearing fairy-tale in simple rhyming verse but also as a profound allegorical text of social injustice.