Pipe high—­pipe low—­all over the wold! 
    “Lad, wilt thou not come in?” asked she. 
    “Who has a song, he feels no cold! 
    My brother’s hearth is mine own,” quoth he.

“Pipe high—­pipe low!  For what care I Though there be no hearth on the wide gray plain?  I have set my face to the open sky, And have cloaked myself in the thick gray rain.”

    Over the hills where the white clouds are,
    He piped to the sheep till they needs must come. 
    They fed in pastures strange and far,
    But at fall of night he brought them home.

    They followed him, bleating, wherever he led: 
    He called his brother out to see. 
    “I have brought thee my flocks for a gift,” he said,
    “For thou seest that they are mine,” quoth he.

“Pipe high—­pipe low! wherever I go The wide grain presses to hear me sing.  Who has a song, though his state be low, He has no need of anything.”

    “Ye have taken my house,” he said, “and my sheep,
    But ye had no heart to take me in. 
    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.