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The Messianic Aspect of Robert Browning's Pied Piper
Who is like the Pied Piper
in his coat of red and gold?
Who like the minstrel
who sings away our gnawing cares
and drowns them in the rivers
that wash the green-blue sea?
Who is like the physician,
healing of plagues in Egypt land
or who is like the prophet
leading out his children bound?
Who is like the chastener
who humbles the proud and vain?
Who is like the victor
who "can cross that mighty top”?
Who is like the player
who breathed sweetly as bird at dawn
three notes upon his pipe?
Who is like the skull-capped dancer
out-dancing the dancer death?
Can we, feet-frozen, answer?
Who is like the Pied Piper
in his coat of red and gold,
whose eyes like salted flames
absorb green seas and golden shores,
who leads away his children
to a blessed promised land,
who like the sun in red and gold
dies but to rise again?
Whither he passed we do not know,
nor guess his kith and kin.
He is like Melchizedek, musician priest and king.
He is the lord of summer,
of autumn winter and spring.
Copyright ©
Julian Scutts
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