With all the sensitive tight strings Went in and out the chords, his wings Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell And how your pictures must descend To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke! The lady with the colder breast than snow. Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand More than I touch yours when I step to land, And say, "All thanks, Siora!" Heart to heart And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part, Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art! [He is surprised, and stabbed. It was ordained to be so, sweet!-and best Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast. Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! III At last the people in a body To the Town Hall came flocking: ""T is clear," cried they, "our Mayor's a noddy; And as for our Corporation-shocking To think we buy gowns lined with ermine For dolts that can't or won't determine What's best to rid us of our vermin! You hope, because you 're old and obese, To find in the furry civic robe ease? Rouse up, sirs! Give your brains a racking To find the remedy we 're lacking, Or, sure as fate, we 'll send you packing! 99 At this the Mayor and Corporation Quaked with a mighty consternation. IV An hour they sat in council; At length the Mayor broke silence: "For a guilder I 'd my ermine gown sell, I wish I were a mile hence ! It 's easy to bid one rack one's brain- (With the Corporation as he sat, Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous For a plate of turtle green and glutinous) V "Come in!"-the Mayor cried, looking bigger: And in did come the strangest figure! The tall man and his quaint attire. Quoth one: "It 's as my great-grandsire, Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone, Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!" VI He advanced to the council-table: By means of a secret charm, to draw On creatures that do people harm, To match with his coat of the self-same check; And at the scarf's end hung a pipe; And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying As if impatient to be playing 66 poor piper as I am, In Tartary I freed the Cham, Last June, from his huge swarms of Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, And step for step they followed dancing, I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards, And a drawing the corks of train-oil flasks, The Piper's face fell, and he cried, No trifling! I can't wait, beside! For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, XI "How?" cried the Mayor, "d'ye think I brook Being worse treated than a Cook? With idle pipe and vesture piebald? XII Once more he stepped into the street, Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane; And ere he blew three notes (such sweet Soft notes as yet musician's cunning Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling; Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering, Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering, And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scattering, Out came the children running. With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, XIII The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood As if they were changed into blocks of wood, Unable to move a step, or cry However, he turned from South to West, And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed, And after him the children pressed; He never can cross that mighty top! A wondrous portal opened wide. As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed; And the Piper advanced and the children followed, And when all were in to the very last, The door in the mountain-side shut fast. Did I say all? No! One was lame, And could not dance the whole of the way; And in after years if you would blame His sadness, he was used to say,- It's dull in our town since my playmates left! I can't forget that I'm bereft Of all the pleasant sights they see, And flowers put forth a fairer hue, And their dogs outran our fallow deer, And just as I became assured My lame foot would be speedily cured, To go now limping as before, XIV Alas, alas for Hamelin ! There came into many a burgher's pate A text which says that heaven's gate Opes to the rich at as easy rate As the needle's eye takes a camel in! The Mayor sent East, West, North and South, To offer the Piper, by word of mouth, Wherever it was men's lot to find him, Silver and gold to his heart's content, If he'd only return the way he went, And bring the children behind him. But when they saw 't was a lost endeavor, And Piper and dancers were gone for ever, They made a decree that lawyers never Should think their records dated duly If, after the day of the month and year, These words did not as well appear, "And so long after what happened here On the Twenty-second of July, Thirteen hundred and seventy-six :" And the better in memory to fix The place of the children's last retreat, They called it, the Pied Piper's StreetWhere any one playing on pipe or tabor Was sure for the future to lose his labor. Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern To shock with mirth a street so solemn ; But opposite the place of the cavern They wrote the story on a column. And on the great church-window painted The same, to make the world acquainted How their children were stolen away, And there it stands to this very day. And I must not omit to say That in Transylvania there's a tribe On which their neighbors lay such stress, To their fathers and mothers having risen Out of some subterraneous prison Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land, XV So, Willy, let me and you be wipers Of scores out with all men-especially pipers! And, whether they pipe us free from rats or fróm mice, If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise! 1842. RUDEL TO THE LADY OF TRIPOLI I KNOW a Mount, the gracious Sun perceives First, when he visits, last, too, when he leaves The world; and, vainly favored, it repays The day-long glory of his steadfast gaze By no change of its large calm front of snow. And underneath the Mount, a Flower I know, He cannot have perceived, that changes ever At his approach; and, in the lost endeavor To live his life, has parted, one by one, With all a flower's true graces, for the grace Of being but a foolish mimic sun, With ray-like florets round a disk-like face. Men nobly call by many a name the Mount As over many a land of theirs its large Calm front of snow like a triumphal targe Is reared, and still with old names, fresh names vie, Each to its proper praise and own account: Men call the Flower the Sunflower, sportively. II Oh, Angel of the East, one, one gold look Across the waters to this twilight nook, -The far sad waters, Angel, to this nook! III Dear Pilgrim, art thou for the East indeed? Go!-saying ever as thou dost proceed, That I, French Rudel, choose for my device A sunflower outspread like a sacrifice Before its idol. See! These inexpert And hurried fingers could not fail to hurt The woven picture; 't is a woman's skill Indeed; but nothing baffled me, so, ill Or well, the work is finished. Say, men feed On songs I sing, and therefore bask the bees On my flower's breast as on a platform broad: But as the flower's concern is not for these But solely for the sun, so men applaud In vain this Rudel, he not looking here But to the East-the East! Go, say this, Pilgrim dear! 1842. THERE'S A WOMAN LIKE A DEWDROP [FROM A BLOT IN THE SCUTCHEON] THERE's a woman like a dewdrop, she's so purer than the purest; And her noble heart 's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's the surest: And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster, Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: Then her voice's music . . . call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble! And this woman says, "My days were sunless and my nights were moonless, |