Showing results for "The Piper" in Classics

Dennis Short thought his tour of duty was over...but now he has stepped into another war. Short, a Navy medical corpsman stationed in Hawaii after his ordeal in Vietnam, is looking forward to his two-week excursion to the island of Kahoolawe. But from the first day, he is plagued by an oppressive sense that he is being manipulated. Each night he slips into a dreamlike world of half-human mythical creatures who tempt him, frighten him, force him to become part of their battles with one another.

The legend of a garishly-dressed piper who uses his musical skills to rid a town of a plague of rats and then lures the town's children into a mysterious and inaccessible realm when denied payment for his services dates back to the Middle Ages. Browning's colorful retelling of the tale first appeared in 1842 in the collection Dramatic Lyrics. As with many of Browning's monologues, the poem's vivid wordplay and jangling rhymes make it an apt vehicle for recitation.