"The mole, and toad, and newt, and viper;
"And people call me the Pied Piper."
(And here they noticed round his neck
A scarf of red and yellow stripe,
To match with his coat of the selfsame cheque ;
And at the scarf's end hung a pipe;
And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying As if impatient to be playing
Upon this pipe, as low it dangled
Over his vesture so old-fangled).
Yet," said he, "poor piper as I am,
"In Tartary I freed the Cham,
"Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats; "I eased in Asia the Nizam
"Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats :
66 And, as for what your brain bewilders,
"If I can rid your town of rats
"Will you give me a thousand guilders?"
"One? fifty thousand!" was the exclamation
Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.
Into the street the Piper stept,
Smiling first a little smile,
As if he knew what magic slept
In his quiet pipe the while;
Then, like a musical adept,
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled
Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled;
And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered;
And the muttering grew to a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats,
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, consins,
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,
Families by tens and dozens,
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives-
Followed the piper for their lives.
From street to street he piped advancin r,
And step for step they followed dancing,
Until they came to the river Weser,
Wherein all plunged and perished-
Save one, who, stout as Julius Cæsar,
Swam across and lived to carry
(As he the manuscript he cherished)
To Rat-land home his commentary,
Which was,
"At the first shrill notes of the pipe,
"I heard a sound as of scraping tripe.
"And putting apples, wondrous ripe,
"Into a cider-press's gripe:
"And a moving away of pickle-tub boards,
"And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards,
"And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks,
"And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks:
"And it seemed as if a voice
"(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery
"Is breathed) called out, Oh rats, rejoice!
"The world is grown to one vast drysaltery!
"So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,
"Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!
"And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon,
"All ready staved, like a great sun shone
"Glorious scarce an inch before me,
"Just as methought it said, Come, bore me!
"I found the Weser rolling o'er me."
You should have heard the Hamelin people
Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple
"Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles!
"Poke out the nests and block up the holes!
"Consult with carpenters and builders,
"And leave in our town not even a trace
"Of the rats!"-when suddenly up the face
Of the Piper perked in the market-place,
With a "First, if you please, my thousand guilders!"
But for the manner in which this fair demand was received by the rulers of the delivered town, and all that thence ensued, the reader must be left to resort to the poet's own pages. We give as a specimen of another kind the concluding lines of Paracelsus's long and eloquent dying declamation :
Taught me the worth of love in man's estate,
And what proportion love should hold with power
In his right constitution; love preceding
Power, and with much power always much more love;
Love still too straitened in its present means,
And earnest for new power to set it free.
I learned this, and supposed the whole was learned:
And thus, when men received with stupid wonder
My first revealings, would have worshipped me,
And I despised and loathed their proffered praise-
When, with awakened eyes, they took revenge
For past credulity in casting shame
On my real knowledge, and I hated them—
It was not strange I saw no good in man,
To overbalance all the wear and waste
Of faculties, displayed in vain, but born
To prosper in some better sphere and why?
In my own heart love had not been made wise
To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind,
To know even hate is but a mask of love's,
To see a good in evil, and a hope
In ill-success; to sympathize, be proud
Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim
Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies,
Their prejudice, and fears, and cares, and doubts;
Which all touch upon nobleness, despite
Their error, all tend upwardly though weak,
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun,
But dream of him, and guess where he may be,
And do their best to climb and get to him.
All this I knew not, and I failed. Let men
Regard me, and the poet dead long ago
Who once loved rashly; and shape forth a third,
And better-tempered spirit, warned by both :
As from the over-radiant star too mad
To drink the light-springs, beamless thence itself-
And the dark orb which borders the abyss,
Ingulfed in icy night,-might have its course
A temperate and equi-distant world.
Meanwhile, I have done well, though not all well.
As yet men cannot do without contempt-
'Tis for their good, and therefore fit awhile
That they reject the weak, and scorn the false,
Rather than praise the strong and true, in me.
But, after, they will know me! If I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time; I press God's lamp
Close to my breast-its splendour, soon or late,
Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day!
And thus the finished music of the poem returns to the same note from which it had sprung up on its grand parabolic sweep, and the self-willed and daring but always noble as well as brilliant visionary to the words with which he had broken away long ago from his two friends Festus and Michal :
I see my way as birds their trackless way-
I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first,
I ask not but, unless God send his hail
Or blinding fire-balls, sleet, or stifling snow,
In some time-his good time--I shall arrive :
He guides me and the bird. In his good time!
If there be a fourth name belonging to this period, the middle portion of the present century, which after-times will recognize as that of a poet of the first class, it is that of the late Thomas Hood. No one of his contemporaries has surpassed him either in perfection of workmanship or in originality of conception. Upon whatever he has written he has stamped the impress of himself, and as with a diamond signet. Nor, although his most distinctive manner is comic, is he at all inferior to himself when he adopts a different style, as he has done in several of his best-known poems. As in other instances, indeed, for example, in Horace and in Burns-what gives their peculiar character and charm to his most pathetic touches is essentially the same thing which makes the brilliancy of his comic manner. All that is most characteristic of him in expression and thought is to be discerned in the curious felicity of the following exquisitely beautiful and tender lines:
We watched her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.
So silently we seemed to speak,
So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
For when the morn came dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed-she had
Another morn than ours.
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