I will give ye my right for your own to keep,
But ye be not my kin.
"To the kind fields my steps are led.
My people rush across the plain.
My bare feet shall not fear to tread
With the cold white feet of the rain.
"My father's house is wherever I pass;
My brothers are each stock and stone;
My mother's bosom in the grass
Yields a sweet slumber to her son.
"Ye are rich in house and flocks," said he,
"Though ye have no heart to take me in.
There was only a reed that was left for me,
And ye be not my kin."
"_Pipe high--pipe low! Though skies be gray,
Who has a song, he needs must roam!
Even though ye call all day, all day,
'Brother, wilt thou come home?_'"
Over the meadows and over the wold,
Up to the hills where the skies begin,
The youngest son of his father's house
Went forth to find his kin.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
The stanzas in italic are a kind of refrain; they represent the music of
the youngest son.
Why does the piper not go into the house when his brother's wife invites
him? What does he mean when he says, "My brother's hearth is mine own"?
Why does he say that the sheep are his? What does he mean when he says,
"I will give ye my right," etc.? Why are his brothers not his kin? Who
are the people that "rush across the plain"? Explain the fourteenth
stanza. Why did the piper go forth to find his kin? Whom would he claim
as his kindred? Why? Does the poem have a deeper meaning than that which
first appears? What kind of person is represented by the youngest son?
What are meant by his pipe and the music? Who are those who cast him
out? Re-read the whole poem with the deeper meaning in mind.
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