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 forever,
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
Of alien people who ascribe

The outlandish ways and dress

On which their neighbors lay such stress,
To their fathers and mothers having risen
Out of some subterraneous prison
Into which they were trepanned
Long time ago in a mighty band

Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,
But how or why, they don't understand.

So, Willy, let me and you be wipers

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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!

1843.

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Robert Browning.

THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS

THE Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal's chair!
Bishop and abbot and prior were there;

Many a monk, and many a friar,

Many a knight, and many a squire, With a great many more of lesser degree,— In sooth, a goodly company;

And they served the Lord Primate on bended

knee.

Never, I ween,

Was a prouder seen,

Read of in books, or dreamt of in dreams,

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Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims! In and out,

Through the motley rout,

That little Jackdaw kept hopping about;

Here and there,

Like a dog in a fair,

Over comfits and cates,

And dishes and plates,

Cowl and cope, and rochet and pall,
Mitre and crosier, he hopped upon all.
With a saucy air,

He perched on the chair

Where, in state, the great Lord Cardinal sat,
In the great Lord Cardinal's great red hat;
And he peered in the face

Of his Lordship's Grace,

With a satisfied look, as if he would say, "WE TWO are the greatest folks here to-day!" And the priests, with awe,

As such freaks they saw,

Said, "The Devil must be in that little Jack

daw!"

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The feast was over, the board was cleared,
The flawns and the custards had all disappeared,
And six little Singing-boys,—dear little souls
In nice clean faces, and nice white stoles,-
Came, in order due,

Two by two,

Marching that grand refectory through!
A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
Embossed and filled with water, as pure

As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,
Which a nice little boy stood ready to catch
In a fine golden hand-basin made to match.
Two nice little boys, rather more grown,
Carried lavender-water and eau-de-Cologne ;
And a nice little boy had a nice cake of soap,
Worthy of washing the hands of the Pope!
One little boy more

A napkin bore,

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Of the best white diaper, fringed with pink,
And a cardinal's Hat marked in "permanent ink."

The great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight
Of these nice little boys dressed all in white;
From his finger he draws

His costly turquoise :

And, not thinking at all about little Jackdaws, Deposits it straight

By the side of his plate,

While the nice little boys on his Eminence wait; Till, when nobody's dreaming of any such

And nobody seems to know what they 're about, But the monks have their pockets all turned

inside out;

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The friars are kneeling,

And hunting and feeling

The carpet, the floor, and the walls, and the

ceiling.

The Cardinal drew

Off each plum-colored shoe,

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And left his red stockings exposed to the view: He peeps, and he feels

In the toes and the heels.

They turn up the dishes,-they turn up the

plates,―

They take up the poker and poke out the grates,
-They turn up the rugs,

They examine the mugs;
But, no!-no such thing,-
They can't find THE RING!

And the Abbot declared that "when nobody

twigged it,

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Some rascal or other had popped in and prigged

it!"

The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,

He called for his candle, his bell, and his book! In holy anger and pious grief

He solemnly cursed that rascally thief!

He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed; From the sole of his foot to the crown of his

head;

He cursed him in sleeping, that every night He should dream of the Devil, and wake in a

fright.

He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in

drinking,