{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_11661/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_11661","id":"gutenberg_11661","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11661","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Pied Piper of Hamelin (Legendary character) -- Drama"],"text":"The Piper\n\nA PLAY IN FOUR ACTS\n\n\n\nBy JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY\n\n\n\n\nBOSTON and NEW YORK\nHOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY\n\nThe Riverside Press Cambridge\n1910\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1909, BY JOSEPHINE PEABODY MARKS\nALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\nPublished November 1909\n\nSEVENTH IMPRESSION\n\n\n\n\nTO\n\nLIONEL S. MARKS\n\n\n\n\nAnno 1284\nAm Dage Johannis et Pauli\nWar der 26 Junii\nDorch einen piper mit allerlei farve bekledet\nGewesen CXXX kinder verledet binnen Hamelen geboren\nTo Calvarii bi den koppen verloren\n\n[THE HAMELIN INSCRIPTION]\n\n\n\n\nCHARACTERS\n\nTHE PIPER                    )\nMICHAEL-THE-SWORD-EATER      )   Strolling Players\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL              )\n\nJACOBUS the Burgomeister     )\nKURT the Syndic              )\nPETER the Cobbler            )\nHANS the Butcher             )\nAXEL the Smith               )   Men of Hamelin\nMARTIN the Watch             )\nPETER the Sacristan          )\nANSELM, a young priest       )\nOLD CLAUS, a miser           )\nTOWN CRIER                   )\n\nJAN                          )\nHANSEL                       )\nILSE                         )   Children\nTRUDE                        )\nRUDI                         )\n\nVERONIKA, the wife of Kurt\nBARBARA, daughter of Jacobus\nWIFE of HANS the Butcher\nWIFE of AXEL the Smith\nWIFE of MARTIN the Watch\nOLD URSULA\n\nBurghers, nuns, priests, and children\n\n\n\nSCENE: HAMELIN ON THE WESER, 1284 A.D.\n\n\n\n\nSCENES\n\nACT I.              The market-place in Hamelin\n\nACT II.   SCENE I.  Inside the 'Hollow-Hill'\n          SCENE II. The Cross-ways\n\nACT III.            The Cross-ways\n\nACT IV.             The market-place in Hamelin\n\n\n\nOne week is supposed to elapse between Acts I and II.\n\nActs II and III occupy one day.\n\nAct IV concerns the following morning.\n\n\n\n\nThe Piper\n\nACT I\n\nSCENE: The market-place of Hamelin.  Right, the Minster, with\nan open shrine (right centre) containing a large sculptured\nfigure of the Christ.  Right, farther front, the house of KURT;\nand other narrow house-fronts.  Left, the Rathaus, and (down)\nthe home of JACOBUS.  Front, to left and right, are corner-houses\nwith projecting stories and casement windows.  At the centre rear,\na narrow street leads away between houses whose gables all but\nmeet overhead.\n\nIt is late summer afternoon, with a holiday crowd.  In the open\ncasements, front (right and left, opposite each other), sit\nOLD URSULA and OLD CLAUS, looking on at men and things.\n--In the centre of the place now stands a rude wooden Ark with\na tented top: and out of the openings (right and left) appear\nthe artificial heads of animals, worn by the players inside.\nOne is a Bear (inhabited by MICHAEL-THE-SWORD-EATER); one is a\nlarge Reynard-the-Fox, later apparent as the PIPER.  Close by is\nthe medieval piece of stage-property known as 'Hell-Mouth,' i.e.\na red painted cave with a jaw-like opening into which a mountebank\ndressed in scarlet (CHEAT-THE-DEVIL) is poking 'Lost Souls' with\na pitchfork.\n\nBARBARA loiters by the tent.  VERONIKA, the sad young wife\nof KURT, watches from the house steps, left, keeping her\nlittle lame boy, Jan, close beside her.\n\nShouts of delight greet the end of the show, a Noah's Ark\nmiracle-play of the rudest; and the Children continue to\nscream with joy whenever an Animal looks out of the Ark.\n\nMen and women pay scant attention either to JACOBUS, when he\nspeaks (himself none too sober)--from his doorstep, prompted\nby the frowning KURT,--or yet to ANSELM, the priest, who\nstands forth with lifted hands, at the close of the miracle-play.\n\n\nANSELM\nAnd you, who heed the colors of this show,\nLook to your laughter!--It doth body forth\nA Judgment that may take you unaware,--\nSun-struck with mirth, like unto chattering leaves\nSome wind of wrath shall scourge to nothingness.\n\nHANS, AXEL, AND OTHERS\nHurrah, Hurrah!\n\nJACOBUS\n  And now, good townsmen all,\nSeeing we stand delivered and secure\nAs once yon chosen creatures of the Ark,\nFor a similitude,--our famine gone,\nOur plague of rats and mice,--\n\nCROWD\n  Hurrah--hurrah!\n\nJACOBUS\n'Tis meet we render thanks more soberly--\n\nHANS the Butcher\nSoberly, soberly, ay!--\n\nJACOBUS\n  For our deliverance.\nAnd now, ye wit, it will be full three days\nSince we beheld--our late departed pest.--\n\nOLD URSULA\n[putting out an ear-trumpet]\nWhat does he say?\n\nREYNARD\n[from the Ark]\n  --Oh, how felicitous!\n\nHANS' WIFE\nHe's only saying there be no more rats.\n\nJACOBUS\n[with oratorical endeavor]\nThree days it is; and not one mouse,--one mouse,\nOne mouse, I say!--No-o-o!  Quiet. . . as a mouse.\n\n[Resuming]\nAnd now. . .\n\nCROWD\n  Long live Jacobus!--\n\nJACOBUS\n  You have seen\nNoah and the Ark, most aptly happening by\nWith these same play-folk.  You have marked the Judgment.\nYou all have seen the lost souls sent to--Hell--\nAnd, nothing more to do.--\n\n[KURT prompts him]\n  Yes, yes.--And now. . .\n\n[HANS the Butcher steps out of his group.]\n\nHANS the Butcher\nHath no man seen the Piper?--Please your worships.\n\nOTHERS\nAy, ay, so!\n  --Ay, where is he?\n    --Ho, the Piper!\n\nJACOBUS\nPiper, my good man?\n\nHANS the Butcher\n--He that charmed the rats!\n\nOTHERS\nYes, yes,--that charmed the rats!\n\nJACOBUS\n[piously]\n  Why, no man knows.--\nWhich proves him such a random instrument\nAs Heaven doth sometimes send us, to our use;\nOr, as I do conceive, no man at all,--\nA man of air; or, I would say--delusion.\nHe'll come no more.\n\nREYNARD\n[from the Ark]\n  Eh?--Oh, indeed, Meaow!\n\nJACOBUS\n'Tis clearest providence.  The rats are gone.\nThe man is gone.  And there is nought to pay,\nSave peaceful worship.\n[Pointing to the Minster.]\n\nREYNARD\n[sarcastically]\n  Oh, indeed,--Meaow!\n[Sudden chorus of derisive animal noises from the Ark,\ndelighting PEOPLE and CHILDREN.]\n\nKURT\nSilence,--you strollers there!  Or I will have you\nGaoled, one and all.\n\nPEOPLE\n  No, Kurt the Syndic, no!\n\nBARBARA\n[to Jacobus]\nNo; no!  Ah, father, bid them stay awhile\nAnd play it all again.--Or, if not all,\nDo let us see that same good youth again,\nWho swallowed swords--between the Ark Preserved\nAnd the Last Judgment!\n\nREYNARD\n  Michael-the-Sword-Eater,\nLaurels for thee!\n\n[The BEAR disappears: MICHAEL puts out his own head,\nand gazes fixedly at BARBARA.\n\nCHILDREN\nOh, can't we see the animals in the Ark?\nAgain?  Oh, can't we see it all again?\n\nILSE\nOh, leave out Noah!  And let's have only Bears\nAnd Dromedaries, and the other ones!--\n\n[General confusion.]\n\nKURT\nSilence!\n\nJACOBUS\n  Good people--you have had your shows;\nAnd it is meet, that having held due feast,\nBoth with our market and this Miracle,\nWe bring our holiday to close with prayer\nAnd public thanks unto Saint Willibald,--\nUpon whose day the rats departed thence.\n\nREYNARD\n[loudly]\nSaint Willibald!\n\nBEAR\n  --Saint Willibald!\n\nOTHER ANIMALS\n[looking out]\n  ( Saint Willibald!\n  ( Saint!  Oh!\n\nCROWD\nSaint Willibald!--And what had he to do\nWith ridding us o' rats?\n\nHANS the Butcher\n  'T was the Piping Man\nWho came and stood here in the market-place,\nAnd swore to do it for one thousand guilders!\n\nPETER the Cobbler\nAy, and he did it, too!--Saint Willibald!\n\n[Renewed uproar round the tent.]\n\nKURT\n[to Jacobus]\nDrive out those mountebanks!  'T is ever so.\nAdmit them to the town and you must pay\nTheir single show with riotings a week.--\nLook yonder at your daughter.\n\n[BARBARA lingers by the Ark-Tent, gazing with girlish\ninterest at MICHAEL, who gazes at her, his bear-head\nin his band for the moment.]\n\nJACOBUS\n  Barbara!\n\n[She turns back, with an angry glance at KURT.]\n\nAXEL the Smith\n[doggedly to them]\nBy your leave. Masters!  I would like to know,\nHow did Saint Willibald prevail with the rats?--\nThat would I like to know. I, who ha' made\nOf strong wrought traps, two hundred, thirty-nine,\nTwo hundred, thirty-nine.\n\nREYNARD\n[calling]\n  And so would I!\n\nHANS the Butcher\nSo please your worships, may it please the Crier,\nNow we be here,--to cry the Piping Man--\n\nPETER the Cobbler\nA stranger-man, gay-clad,--in divers colors!\nBecause he, with said piping--\n\nHANS the Butcher\n  --Drave away\nThe horde of rats!\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n[sagely]\n  To our great benefit;\nAnd we be all just men.\n\nOTHERS\n  Ay, ay!--Amen!\n\nWOMEN\nAmen, Our Lady and the blessed Saints!\n\nJACOBUS\nWhy, faith, good souls, if ye will have him cried,\nSo be it.--But the ways of Heaven are strange!\nMark how our angel of deliverance came,--\nOr it may be.  Saint Willibald himself,--\nMost piedly clothed, even as the vilest player!--\nAnd straight ascended from us, to the clouds!\nBut cry him, if you will.--Peace to your lungs!--\nHe will not come.\n\n[KURT wrathfully consults with JACOBUS, then signals to Crier.\n\nCRIER\n  Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!\nWhereas, now three days gone, our Plague of Rats\nWas wholly driven hence, our City cleansed,\nOur peace restored after sore threat of famine,\nBy a Strange Man who came not back again,\nNow, therefore, if this Man have ears to hear,\nLet him stand forth.--Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!\n\n[Trumpet.--PEOPLE gaze up and down the little streets.--REYNARD\nsteps out of the Ark and comes down slowly, with a modest\nair.--KURT points him out, threateningly, and the CROWD bursts\ninto derisive laughter.--He doffs his animal-head at leisure,\nshowing a sparkling dark-eyed face.\n\nALL\nThe Man! the Man!\n\nKURT AND JACOBUS\n  The Devil!--'T is--\n\nALL\n  --THE PIPER!\n\n[The PIPER regards them all with debonair satisfaction; then\nreverses his head-piece and holds it out upside-down, with a\nconfident smile.\n\nPIPER\nThree days of rest, your worships, you have had.\nI see no signs of famine hereabout.\nThe rats are gone, even to the nethermost tail:\nAnd I've fulfilled my bargain.  Is it granted?\n\n[Murmurs, then cheers of \"Ay, Ay, PIPER!\" from the crowd.\n\nThank 'ee.--My thousand guilders, an you please.\n\nJACOBUS\nOne thou--Come, come!  This was no sober bargain.--\nNo man in reason could--\n\nPIPER\n  One thousand guilders.\n\nKURT\nOne thousand rogueries!\n\nJACOBUS\n[to PIPER]\n  You jest too far.\n\nAXEL\nLucky, if he get aught!--Two hundred traps,\nAnd nine, and thirty!  By Saint Willibald,\nWhen was I paid?\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\n  Say, now!\n\nPIPER\n  . . . One thousand guilders.\n\nPETER the Cobbler\nGive him an hundred.\n\nHANS the Butcher\n  Double!\n\nHANS' WIFE\n  You were fools\nTo make agreement with him.--Ask old Claus.\nHe has the guilders; and his house was full\n0' rats!\n\nOLD CLAUS\n[shaking his stick from the window]\n  You Jade!  And I that hoard, and save,\nAnd lay by all I have from year to year,\nTo build my monument when I am gone,\nA fine new tomb there, in Saint Boniface!\nAnd I to pay for all your city rats!\n\nOLD URSULA\n[leaning out, opposite]\nRight, neighbor, right well said!--Piper, hark here.\nPiper, how did ye charm the rats away?\n\nPIPER\n[coming down]\nThe rats were led--by Cu-ri-os-ity.\n'Tis so with many rats; and all old women;--\nSaving your health!\n\nJACOBUS\n  No thought for public weal,\nIn this base grasping on--\n\nPIPER\n  One thousand guilders.\n\nKURT\n[contemptuously]\nFor piping!\n\nPIPER\n  Shall I pipe them back again?\n\nWOMEN\n                 ( Good Saint Boniface!\nMerciful heaven! ( Good Saint Willibald!\n                 ( Peter and Paul defend us!\n\nHANS the Butcher\nNo, no; no fear o' that.  The rats be drowned.\nWe saw them with our eyes.\n\nPIPER\n  Now who shall say\nThere is no resurrection for a mouse?\n\nKURT\n--Do you but crop this fellow's ears!--\n\nVERONIKA\n[from the steps]\n  Ah, Kurt!\n\nJACOBUS\n[to him, blandly]\nDeal patiently, good neighbor. All is well.\n[To the PIPER]\nWhy do you name a price so laughable,\nMy man?  Call you to mind; you have no claim,--\nNo scrip to show. You cling upon--\n\nPIPER\n[sternly]\n  Your word.\n\nJACOBUS\nI, would say--just--\n\nPIPER\n  Your word.\n\nJACOBUS\n  Upon--\n\nPIPER\n  Your word.\nSure, 't was a rotten parchment!\n\nJACOBUS\n  This is a base,\nConniving miser!\n\nPIPER\n[turning proudly]\nStand forth, Cheat-the-Devil!\n[Up steps the DEVIL in red.  PEOPLE shrink, and then come closer.\nBe not afeard.  He pleased you all, of late.\nHe hath no sting.--So, boy!  Do off thy head.--\n\n[CHEAT-THE-DEVIL doffs his red head-dress and stands forth,\na pale and timorous youth, gentle and half-witted.\n\nMichael, stand forth!\n[MICHAEL comes down, bear-head in hand.\n\nBARBARA\n[regarding him sadly]\n  That goodly sword-eater!\n\nPIPER\n[defiantly]\nSo, Michael, so.--These be two friends of mine.\nPay now an even third to each of us.\nOr, to content your doubts, to each of these\nDo you pay here and now, five hundred guilders.\nWho gets it matters little, for us friends.\nBut you will pay the sum, friend. You will pay!--\n\nHANS, AXEL, AND CROWD\nCome, there's an honest fellow.  Ay, now, pay!\n--There's a good friend.--And would I had the same.\n--One thousand guilders?\n  --No, too much.\n    --No, no.\n\nKURT\nPay jugglers?--With a rope apiece!\n\nJACOBUS\n  Why--so--\n\nPIPER\nThey are my friends; and they shall share with me.\n'T is time that Hamelin reckoned us for men;\n--Hath ever dealt with us as we were vermin.\nNow have I rid you of the other sort--\nRight you that score!--\n\nKURT\nThese outcasts!\n\nPIPER\n[hotly]\n  Say you so?\nMichael, my man!  Which of you here will try\nWith glass or fire, with him?\n\nMICHAEL\n[sullenly]\n  No, no more glass, to-day!\n\nPIPER\nThen fire and sword!\n[They back away.]\n  So!--And there's not one man\nIn Hamelin, here, so honest of his word.\nStroller!  A pretty choice you leave us.--Quit\nThis strolling life, or stroll into a cage!\nWhat do you offer him?  A man eats fire--\nSwords, glass, young April frogs--\n\nCHILDREN\n  Do it again!\nDo it again!\n\nPIPER\nYou say to such a man,--\n'Come be a monk!  A weaver!'  Pretty choice.\nHere's Cheat-the-Devil, now.\n\nPETER the Cobbler\nBut what's his name?\n\nPIPER\nHe doesn't know.  What would you?  Nor do I.\nBut for the something he has seen of life,\nMaking men merry, he 'd know something more!\nThe gentlest devil ever spiked Lost Souls\nInto Hell-mouth,--for nothing-by-the-day!\n\nOLD URSULA\n[with her ear-trumpet]\nPiper, why do you call him Cheat-the-Devil?\n\nPIPER\nBecause his deviltry is all a cheat:--\nHe is no devil,--but a gentle heart!\n--Friend Michael here hath played the Devil, betimes,\nBecause he can so bravely breathe out fire.\nHe plied the pitchfork so we yelped for mercy,--\nHe reckoned not the stoutness of his arm!--\nBut Cheat-the-Devil here,--he would not hurt\nWhy--Kurt the Syndic--thrusting him in hell.\n                              [Laughter.\n\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL\n[unhappily]\nNo, no--I will not hurt him!\n\nPIPER\n[soothingly to him]\n  Merry, boy!\n[To the townsfolk]\nAnd,--if ye will have reasons, good,--ye see,--\nI want--one thousand guilders.\n\nJACOBUS\n In all surety,\nPayment you'll have, my man, But--\n\nHANS the Butcher\n  As to 's friends,--\nAn that yon Devil be as feat wi' his hands\nAs he be slow o' tongue, why, I will take him\nFor prentice.  Wife,--now that would smack o' pride!\n\nPETER the Cobbler\nI'll take this fellow that can swallow fire,\nHe's somewhat old for me.  But he can learn\nMy trade.--A pretty fellow!\n\nPIPER\nAnd your trade?\n\nPETER the Cobbler\nPeter the cobbler.--\n\nMICHAEL\n  I?  What, I?  Make shoes?\n[Proudly]\nI swallow fire.\n\nPIPER\n  Enough.\n\nBARBARA\n[aside, bitterly]\nI'll not believe it.\n\nPIPER\n[to HANS]\nYour trade?\n\nHANS the Butcher\n  I'm Hans the Butcher.\n\nMICHAEL\n  Butcher?\n\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL\n[unhappily]\n  Butcher!\nOh, no!  I couldn't hurt them.\n\n[Loud laughter.\n\nBUTCHER'S WIFE\n'T is a fool!\n\n[The PIPER motions to MICHAEL and CHEAT-THE-DEVIL, who during\nthe following join the other player-folk, strike their tent,\npack their bundles, and wheel off the bar rows that have served\nthem for an Ark, leaving the space clear before the Shrine.\nExeunt Strollers, all but MICHAEL, who hangs about, still gazing\nat BARBARA.\n\nJACOBUS\nGood people, we have wasted time enow.\nYou see this fellow, that he has no writ--\n\nPIPER\nWhy not, then? 'T was a bargain. If your word\nHold only when 't is writ--\n\nKURT\n  We cannot spend\nClerkship on them that neither write nor read.\nWhat good would parchment do thee?\n\nJACOBUS\n  My good man--\n\nPIPER\nWho says I cannot read?--Who says I cannot?\n\nOLD CLAUS\nPiper, don't tell me you can read in books!\n\nPIPER\n[at bay]\nBooks!  Where's a book?  Shew me a book, I say!\n\nOLD URSULA\nThe Holy Book!  Bring that--or he'll bewitch you.\n\nPIPER\nOh, never fear.  I charm but fools and children;\nNow that the rats are gone.--Bring me a Book:\nA big one!--\n\n[Murmurs.  The PIPER defiant.  The crowd moves towards the\nMinster.  Enter ANSELM the priest, with a little acolyte,--the\ntwo bearing a large illuminated Gospel-book.  ANSELM, eyeing\nthe PIPER gravely, opens the book, which the boy supports on\nhis head and shoulders.\n\nPIPER\nHo, 't is too heavy!  Come, you cherub-head,\nHere's too much laid upon one guardian angel!\n[Beckons another small boy, and sets the book on their two backs.\nWell?--well?  What now?\n[He looks in frank bewilderment at the eager crowd.\n\nCROWD\n  Read, read!\n\nKURT\n  He cannot read.\n\nPIPER\n[to ANSELM]\nTurn--turn--there's nothing there.\n[ANSELM turns pages. PIPER looks on blankly]\n  . . . Ah, turn again!\nThe red one!--\n[He takes his fife from his belt]\nNo, the green!  The green one.  So.\n[Starts to pipe, looking on the book.]\n\nCROWD\n  ( Sure 't is a mad-man!\n  ( But hear him piping!\n  ( What is he doing?\n\nPIPER\n[puzzled at their mirth]\n  What the green one says.--\n[A burst of laughter from the crowd.  JAN, the little lame boy\non the steps, reaches his arms out suddenly and gives a cry of\ndelight.\n\nJAN\nOh, I love the Man!\n\n[He goes, with his crutch, to the PIPER, who turns and gathers\nhim close.\n\nJACOBUS\n[to the People]\nLeave off this argument.\n\nKURT\n  Go in to Mass.\n\nJACOBUS\nSaint Willibald!\n\nPIPER\n[in a rage]\nThat Saint!--\n\nKURT\nHence, wandering dog!\n\nPIPER\nOho!--Well, every Saint may have his day.\nBut there are dog-days coming.--Eh, your worship?\n[To ANSELM, suddenly]\nYou, there! You--Brother--Father--Uncle--You!\nSpeak!  Will you let them in, to say their prayers\nAnd mock me through their fingers?--Tell these men\nTo settle it, among their mouldy pockets,\nWhether they keep their oath.  Then will I go.\n\nKURT\n[savagely]\nAway with you!--\n\nANSELM\n  The Piper should be heard;\nYe know it well.  Render to Caesar, therefore,\nThat which is Caesar's.\n\nPIPER\n  --Give the Devil his due!\n\nJACOBUS\n[warily]\nWe must take counsel over such a sum.\n\n[Beckoning others, he and KURT go into the Rathaus, followed\nby all the men.  Exit ANSELM with the Holy Book into the\nMinster.--The children play Mouse, to and fro, round about\nthe PIPER.--The women, some of them, spin on the doorsteps,\nwith little hand distaff's, or stand about, gossiping.\n\n[The PIPER wipes his forehead and goes up slowly (centre) to\ndrink from the fountain at the foot of the Shrine.--MICHAEL,\nlike one in a dream, comes down towards BARBARA, who gazes back\nat him, fascinated, through her laughter.\n\nBARBARA\nIs it for pay you loiter, Master Player?\nWere you not paid enough?\n\nMICHAEL\n  No.--One more look.\n\nBARBARA\nHere, then.--Still not enough?\n\nMICHAEL\n\nNo! One more smile.\n\nBARBARA\n[agitated ]\nWhy would you have me smile?\n\nMICHAEL\n[passionately]\nOh, when you smiled,\nIt was--it was like sunlight coming through\nSome window there,\n[Pointing to the Minster]\n--some vision of Our Lady.\n[She drops her flowers.--He picks them up\nand gives them back slowly.\n\nBARBARA\nWho are you?  You are some one in disguise.\n\nMICHAEL\n[bitterly]\nA man--that passes for a mountebank.\n\nBARBARA\n[eagerly]\nI knew!\n\nMICHAEL\n  What then?\n\nBARBARA\nThou art of noble birth.\n'T is some disguise, this playing with the fire!\n\nMICHAEL\nYes.--For to-day, I lord it with the fire.\nBut it hath burned me, here.\n[Touching his breast.]\n[Overcome for the moment, she draws away.--\nThe PIPER, coming down, speaks stealthily to MICHAEL,\nwho is still gazing.\n\nPIPER\n  For all our sakes!\nThere is bad weather breeding.--Take to thy heels.\n\n[BARBARA turns back to see MICHAEL withdrawing reluctantly,\nand throws a rose to him with sudden gayety.\n\nBARBARA\nFarewell to you, Sword-Swallower!--farewell!\n\nMICHAEL\n[looking back]\nFarewell to you, my Lady, in-the-Moon.\n  [Exit.\n[JAN clings once more to the PIPER, while the other children\nhang about.  VERONIKA calls to her boy, from the steps.\n\nVERONIKA\nDarling.--\n\nPIPER\n[drawing nearer]\n  Is this your Boy?\n\nVERONIKA\n  Ay, he is mine;\nMy only one.  He loved thy piping so.\n\nPIPER\nAnd I loved his.\n\nHANS' WIFE\n[stridently]\n  Poor little boy!  He's lame!\n\nPIPER\n'T is all of us are lame!  But he, he flies.\n\nVERONIKA\nJan, stay here if you will, and hear the pipe,\nAt Church-time.\n\nPIPER\n[to him]\n  Wilt thou?\n\nJAN\n[softly]\n  Mother lets me stay\nHere with the Lonely Man.\n\nPIPER\n  The Lonely Man?\n[JAN points to the Christ in the Shrine.  VERONIKA crosses herself.\nThe PIPER looks long at the little boy.\n\nVERONIKA\nHe always calls Him so.\n\nPIPER\n  And so would I.\n\nVERONIKA\nIt grieves him that the Head is always bowed,\nAnd stricken.  But he loves more to be here\nThan yonder in the church.\n\nPIPER\n  And so do I.\n\nVERONIKA\nWhat would you, darling, with the Lonely Man?\nWhat do you wait to see?\n\nJAN\n[shyly]\n  To see Him smile.\n\n[The women murmur.  The PIPER comes down\nfurther to speak to VERONIKA.\n\nPIPER\nYou are some foreign woman. Are you not?\nNever from Hamelin!\n\nVERONIKA\n  No.\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\n[to her child]\n  Then run along.\nAnd ask the Piper if he'll play again\nThe tune that charmed the rats.\n\nANOTHER\n  They might come back!\n\nOLD URSULA\n[calling from her window]\nPiper!  I want the tune that charmed the rats!\nIf they come back, I'll have my grandson play it.\n\nPIPER\nI pipe but for the children.\n\nILSE\n[dropping her doll and picking it up]\n  Oh, do pipe\nSomething for Fridolin!\n\nHANSEL\n  Oh, pipe at me!\nNow I'm a mouse!  I'll eat you up!  Rr--rr!--\n\nCHILDREN\nOh, pipe!  Oh, play!  Oh, play and make us dance!\nOh, play, and make us run away from school!\n\nPIPER\nWhy, what are these?\n\nCHILDREN\n[scampering round him]\n  We're mice, we're mice, we're mice! . . .\nWe're mice, we're mice!  We'll eat up everything!\n\nMARTIN'S WIFE\n[calling]\n'T is church-time.  La, what will the neighbors say?\n\nILSE\n[Waving her doll]\nOh, please do play something for Fridolin!\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\nDo hear the child.  She's quite the little mother!\n\nPIPER\nA little mother?  Ugh!  How horrible.\nThat fairy thing, that princess,--no, that Child!\nA little mother?\n[To her]\n  Drop the ugly thing!\n\nMARTIN'S WIFE\nNow, on my word!  and what's amiss with mothers?\nAre mothers horrible?\n[The PIPER is struck with painful memories.]\n\nPIPER\n  No, no.  But--care\nAnd want and pain and age. . .\n[Turns back to them with a bitter change of voice]\n  And penny-wealth,--\nAnd penny-counting.--Penny prides and fears--\nOf what the neighbors say the neighbors say!--\n\nMARTIN'S WIFE\nAnd were you born without a mother, then?\n\nALL\nYes, you there!  Ah, I told you!  He's no man.\nHe's of the devil.\n\nMARTIN'S WIFE\n  Who was your mother, then?\n\nPIPER\n[fiercely]\nMine!--Nay, I do not know.  For when I saw her,\nShe was a thing so trodden, lost and sad,\nI cannot think that she was ever young,\nSave in the cherishing voice.--She was a stroller;\nMy father was a stroller.--So, you have it!\nAnd since she clave to him, and hunger too,\nThe Church's ban was on her.--Either live,\nMewed up forever,--she! to be a nun;\nOr keep her life-long wandering with the wind;\nThe very name of wife stript from her troth.\nThat was my mother.--And she starved and sang;\nAnd like the wind, she roved and lurked and shuddered\nOutside your lighted windows, and fled by,\nStorm-hunted, trying to outstrip the snow,\nSouth, south, and homeless as a broken bird,--\nLimping and hiding!--And she fled, and laughed,\nAnd kept me warm; and died!  To you, a Nothing;\nNothing, forever, oh, you well-housed mothers!\nAs always, always for the lighted windows\nOf all the world, the Dark outside is nothing;\nAnd all that limps and hides there in the dark;\nFamishing,--broken,--lost!\n  And I have sworn\nFor her sake and for all, that I will have\nSome justice, all so late, for wretched men,\nOut of these same smug towns that drive us forth\nAfter the show!--Or scheme to cage us up\nOut of the sunlight; like a squirrel's heart\nTorn out and drying in the market-place.\nMy mother!  Do you know what mothers are?--\nYour children!  Do you know them?  Ah, not you!\nThere's not one here but it would follow me,\nFor all your bleating!\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\n  Kuno, come away!\n\n[The children cling to him.  He smiles down triumphantly.\n\nPIPER\nOho, Oho!  Look you?--You preach--I pipe!\n[Reenter the men, with KURT and JACOBUS,\nfrom the Rathaus, murmuring dubiously.\n[The PIPER sets down JAN and stands forth, smiling.\n\nJACOBUS\n[smoothly]\nH'm!  My good man, we have faithfully debated\nWhether your vision of so great a sum\nMight be fulfilled,--as by some miracle.\nBut no.  The moneys we administer\nWill not allow it; nor the common weal.\nTherefore, for your late service, here you have\nFull fifteen guilders,\n[Holding forth a purse]\n  and a pretty sum\nIndeed, for piping!\n\nKURT\n[ominously]\nTake them!\n\nJACOBUS\n  Either that,\nOr, to speak truly, nothing!\n[The PIPER is motionless]\nCome, come.  Nay, count them, if you will.\n\nKURT\n  Time goes!\n\nPIPER\nAy.  And your oath?\n\nKURT\nNo more; Enough.\n\n[There is a sound of organ music from the Minster.]\n\nVERONIKA\n[beseechingly]\n  Ah, Kurt!\n\nKURT\n[savagely to the crowd]\nWhat do ye, mewling of this fellow's rights?\nHe hath none!--Wit ye well, he is a stroller,\nA wastrel, and the shadow of a man!\nYe waste the day and dally with the law.\nSuch have no rights; not in their life nor body!\nWe are in no wise bound.  Nothing is his.\nHe may not carry arms; nor have redress\nFor any harm that men should put on him,\nSaving to strike a shadow on the wall!\nHe is a Nothing, by the statute-book;\nAnd, by the book, so let him live or die,\nLike to a masterless dog!\n\n[The PIPER stands motionless with head up-raised, not looking\nat KURT.  The people, half-cowed, half-doubting, murmur and\ndraw back.  Lights appear in the Minster; the music continues.\nKURT and JACOBUS lead in the people.  JACOBUS picks up the\nmoney-purse and takes it with him.\n\nVOICES\n[laughing, drunkenly]\nOne thousand guilders to a 'masterless dog'!\n[Others laugh too, pass by, with pity and derision for the PIPER,\nand echoes of 'MASTERLESS DOG!'  Exeunt WOMEN and MEN to the\nMinster.  Only the children are left, dancing round the motionless\nfigure of the PIPER.\n\nCHILDREN\nOh, pipe again!  Oh, pipe and make us dance!\nOh, pipe and make us run away from school!\nOh, pipe and make believe we are the mice!\n\n[He looks down at them. He looks up at the houses.  Then he signs\nto them, with his finger on his lips; and begins, very softly, to\npipe the Kinder-spell.  The old CLAUS and URSULA in the windows\nseem to doze.\n\nThe children stop first, and look at him, fascinated; then\nthey laugh, drowsily, and creep closer,--JAN always near.\nThey crowd around him.  He pipes louder, moving backwards,\nslowly, with magical gestures, towards the little by-streets\nand the closed doors. The doors open, everywhere.\n\nOut come the children: little ones in night gowns; bigger ones,\nwith playthings, toy animals, dolls.  He pipes, gayer and louder.\nThey pour in, right and left.  Motion and music fill the air.\nThe PIPER lifts JAN to his shoulder (dropping the little crutch)\nand marches off, up the street at the rear, piping, in the midst\nof them all.\n\nLast, out of the Minster come tumbling two little acolytes in\nred, and after them, PETER the Sacristan.  He trips over them in\nhis amazement and terror; and they are gone after the vanishing\nchildren before the church-people come out.\n\nThe old folks lean from their windows.\n\nOLD URSULA\nThe bell, the bell!  the church bell!  They're bewitched!\n\n[Peter rushes to the bell-rope and pulls it.  The bell sounds\nheavily.  Reenter, from the church, the citizens by twos and\nthrees and scores.\n\nOLD URSULA\nI told ye all,--I told ye!--Devils' bargains!\n[The bell]\n[KURT, JACOBUS, and the others appear.]\n\nKURT\nPeter the Sacristan!  Give by the bell.\nWhat means this clangor?\n\nPETER the Sacristan\nThey're bewitched!  bewitched!\n[Still pulling and shouting.]\n\nURSULA\nThey're gone!\n\nKURT\n  Thy wits!\n\nOLD CLAUS\nThey're gone--they're gone--they're gone!\n\nPETER the Sacristan\nThe children!\n\nURSULA\n--With the Piper!  They're bewitched!\nI told ye so.\n\nOLD CLAUS\n  --I saw it with these eyes!\nHe piped away the children.\n\n[Horror in the crowd.  They bring out lanterns and candles.\nVERONIKA holds up the forgotten crutch'\n\nVERONIKA\n  Jan--my Jan!\n\nKURT\n[to her]\nThy boy!  But mine, my three, all fair and straight.--\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\n[furiously to him]\n'T was thy false bargain, thine; who would not pay\nThe Piper.--But we pay!\n\nPETER the Sacristan\n  Bewitched, bewitched!\nThe boys ran out--and I ran after them,\nAnd something red did trip me--'t was the Devil.\nThe Devil!\n\nOLD URSULA\n  Ah, ring on, and crack the bell:\nYe'll never have them back.--I told ye so!\n\n[The bell clangs incessantly]\n\n\nCurtain\n\n\n\n\nACT II\n\nSCENE I: Inside 'the Hollow Hill.'\n\nA great, dim-lighted, cavernous place, which shows signs of masonry.\nIt is part cavern and part cellarage of a ruined, burned-down and\nforgotten old monastery in the hills.--The only entrance (at the\ncentre rear), a ramshackle wooden door, closes against a flight\nof rocky steps.--Light comes from an opening in the roof, and from\nthe right, where a faggot-fire glows under an iron pot.--The scene\nreaches (right and left) into dim corners, where sleeping children\nlie curled up together like kittens.\n\nBy the fire sits the PIPER, on a tree-stump seat, stitching at a bit\nof red leather. At his feet is a row of bright-colored small shoes,\nset two and two.  He looks up now and then, to recount the children,\nand goes back to work, with quizzical despair.\n\nLeft, sits a group of three forlorn Strollers.  One nurses a lame\nknee; one, evidently dumb, talks in signs to the others; one is\nmunching bread and cheese out of a wallet.  All have the look of\nhunted and hungry men.  They speak only in whispers to each other\nthroughout the scene; but their hoarse laughter breaks out now and\nthen over the bird-like ignorance of the children.\n\nA shaft of sunlight steals through the hole in the roof. JAN, who\nlies nearest the PIPER, wakes up.\n\nJAN\nOh!\n\n[The PIPER turns]\nOh, I thought. . . I had a dream!\n\nPIPER\n[softly]\nAhe?\n\nJAN\nI thought. . . I dreamed. . . somebody wanted me.\n\nPIPER\nSoho!\n\nJAN\n[earnestly]\nI thought. . . Somebody Wanted me.\n\nPIPER\nHow then?\n[With watchful tenderness.]\n\nJAN\n  I thought I heard Somebody crying.\n\nPIPER\nPfui!--What a dream.--Don't make me cry again.\n\nJAN\nOh, was it you?--Oh, yes!\n\nPIPER\n[apart, tensely]\n  No Michael yet!\n\n[JAN begins to laugh softly, in a bewildered way; then grows\nquite happy and forgetful.  While the other children waken, he\nreaches for the pipe and tries to blow upon it, to the PIPER'S\namusement.  ILSE and HANSEL, the Butcher's children, wake.\n\nILSE\nOh!\n\nHANSEL\n  --Oh!\n\nPIPER\n  Ahe?\n\nILSE\n  I thought I had a dream.\n\nPIPER\nAgain?\n\nILSE\n. . . It was some lady, calling me.\n\nHANSEL\nYes, and a fat man called us to come quick;\nA fat man, he was crying--about me!\nThat same fat man I dreamt of, yesterday.\n\nPIPER\nCome, did you ever see a fat man cry,\nAbout a little Boy?\n\n[The Strollers are convulsed with hoarse mirth.\n\nHANSEL\nNo,--Never.\n\nILSE\n  Never!\nOh, what a funny dream!\n\n[They giggle together.]\n[The PIPER silences the Strollers, with a gesture of warning\ntowards the rocky door.\n\nPIPER\n[to himself]\n'T is Hans the Butcher.\n[To the Children]\n  Well, what did he say?\n\nHANSEL\n'_Come home, come home, come home_!'  But I didn't go.\nI don't know where. . . Oh, what a funny dream!\n\nILSE\nMine was a bad dream!--Mine was a lovely lady\nAnd she was by the river, staring in.\n\nPIPER\nYou were the little gold-fish, none could catch.\nOh, what a funny dream! . . .\n[Apart, anxiously]\n  No Michael yet.\n[Aloud]\nCome, bread and broth!  Here--not all, three at a time;\n'T is simpler.  Here, you kittens. Eat awhile;\nThen--\n\n[RUDI wakes.]\n\nRUDI\nOh!  I had a dream,--an awful dream!\n\n[The PIPER takes JAN on his knee and feeds him, after ladling out\na big bowl of broth from the kettle for the Children, and giving\nthem bread.\n\nPIPER\nOh! oh! I had a dream!\n\nCHILDREN\n  Oh, tell it to us!\n\nPIPER\nI dreamed. . . a Stork. . . had nested in my hat.\n\nCHILDREN\nOh!\n\nPIPER\nAnd when I woke--\n\nCHILDREN\n  You had--\n\nPIPER\n  _One hundred children_!\n\nCHILDREN\nOh, it came true!  Oh, oh; it all came true!\n\nTHE STROLLERS\nAh, ho, ho, ho!\n[The dumb one rises, stretches, and steals toward the entrance, stopping\nto slip a blind-patch over one eye.  The PIPER goes to him with one stride,\nseizing him by the shoulder.\n\nPIPER\n[to him, and the others, apart]\nLook you.--No Michael _yet_!--And he is gone\nFull three days now,--three days.  If he be caught,\nWhy then,--the little ravens shall be fed!\n[Groans from the three]\nEnough that Cheat-the-Devil leaked out too;--\nNo foot but mine shall quit this fox-hole now!\nAnd you,--think praise for once, you have no tongue,\nAnd keep these magpies quiet. [Turns away.\n[To himself]\n  Ah, that girl.\nThe Burgomeister's Barbara!  But for her,\nAnd moon-struck Michael with his 'one more look'!\nWhere is he now?--And where are we?\n[Turning back to the Children]  So, so.\n\n[The Strollers huddle together, with looks of renewed anxiety and\nwretchedness.--Their laughter at the Children breaks out forlornly now\nand then.--The PIPER shepherds the Children, but with watchful eyes and\nears toward the entrance always.\n--His action grows more and more tense.\n\nRUDI\n[over his broth]\nOh, I remember now!--Before I woke. . .\nOh, what an awful dream!\n\nILSE\nOh, tell us, Rudi,--\nOh, scare us,--Rudi, scare us!--\n\nRUDI\n[bursting into tears]\n  . . . _Lump was dead_!\nLump, Lump!--       [The Children wail.\n\nPIPER\n[distracted]\nWho's Lump?\n\nRUDI\n  Our Dog!\n\nPIPER\n[shocked and pained]\n  The Dog!--No, no.\nHeaven save us--I forgot about the dogs!\n\nRUDI\nHe Wanted me;--and I always wasn't there!\nAnd people tied him up,--and other people\nPretended that he bit.--He never bites!\nHe Wanted me, until it broke his heart,\nAnd he was dead!\n\nPIPER\n[struggling with his emotion]\nAnd then he went to heaven,\nTo chase the happy cats up all the trees;--\nLittle white cats! . . . He wears a golden collar . . .\nAnd sometimes--[Aside]--I'd forgot about the dogs!\nWell, dogs must suffer, so that men grow wise.\n'T was ever so.\n\n[He turns to give JAN a piping lesson]\n\nCHILDREN\n\n  Oh, what a funny dream!\n[Suddenly he lifts his hand.  They listen, and hear a dim sound of distant\nchanting, going by on some neighboring road.  The PIPER is puzzled; the\nStrollers are plainly depressed.\n\nJAN\nWhat is it?\n\nPIPER\n  People; passing down below,\nIn the dark valley.\n[He looks at the Children fixedly]\n  Do you want to see them?\n\nCHILDREN\nDon't let them find us!  What an ugly noise.--\nNo, no--don't let them come!\n\nPIPER\nHark ye to me.\nSome day I'll take you out with me to play;\nHigh in the sun,--close to the water-fall . . . .\nAnd we will make believe--_We'll make believe\nWe're hiding_! . . .\n\n[The Strollers rock with mirth.]\n\nCHILDREN\n  Yes, yes!  Oh, let us make believe!\n\nSTROLLERS\nOho, ho, ho!--A make-believe!--Ho, ho!\n\nPIPER\nBut, if you're good,--yes, very, very soon\nI'll take you, as I promised,--\n\nCHILDREN\n  --Gypsies, oh!\n\nPIPER\nYes, with the gypsies.  We shall go at night,\nWith just a torch--\n[Watching them.]\n\nCHILDREN\n  Oh!\n\nPIPER\nLike fire-flies!  Will-o'-the-wisps!\nAnd make believe we're hiding, all the way,\nTill we come out into a sunny land,--\nAll vines and sunlight, yes, and men that sing!\nFar, far away--forever.\n[Gives ILSE a bowl to feed the other children]\n[JAN pipes a measure of the Kinder-spell, brokenly.  The PIPER turns.\n  So!  Thou'lt be\nMy master, some day.  Thou shalt pipe for me.\n\nJAN\n[piping]\nOh, wasn't that one beautiful?--Now you!\n\nPIPER\n[taking the pipe]\n  The rainbow-bridge by day;\n     --And borrow a shepherd-crook!\n  At night we take to the Milky Way;\n    And then we follow the brook!\n\n  We'll follow the brook, whatever way\n  The brook shall sing, or the sun shall say,\n    Or the mothering wood-dove coos!\n  And what do I care, what else I wear,\n    If I keep my rainbow shoes!\n\n[He points to the little row of bright shoes.  The Children scream with\njoy.  ILSE and HANSEL run back.\n\nCHILDREN\nOh dear! What lovely shoes!  Oh, which are mine?\nOh! Oh!--What lovely shoes!  Oh, which are mine?\n\nPIPER\nTry, till you see.\n[Taking up a little red pair]\n  But these,--these are for Jan.\n[JAN is perched on the tree-stump, shy and silent with pleasure.\n\nILSE\nOh, those are best of all! And Jan--\n\nPIPER\n  And Jan\nIs not to trudge, like you.  Jan is to wear\nBeautiful shoes, and shoes made most of all,\nTo look at!\n[Takes up a pair of bird's wings.]\n\nCHILDREN\n[squealing]\n  Oh!  Where did you find the wings?\nBird's wings!\n\nPIPER\n  There was some hunter in the woods,\nWho killed more birds than he could carry home.\nHe did not want these,--though the starling did,\nBut could not use them more!  And so,--\n[Fastening one to each heel]\n  And so,--\nThey trim a little boy.\n[Puts them on JAN.  He is radiant.  He stretches out his legs and pats\nthe feathers.\n\nCHILDREN\n[trying on theirs and capering]\n  O Jan!--O Jan!\nOh! see my shoes!\n\n[The PIPER looks at JAN.]\n\nPIPER\nHey day, what now?\n\nJAN\nI wish. . .\n\nPIPER\nWhat do you wish?  Wish for it!--It shall come.\n[JAN pulls him closer and speaks shyly.]\n\nJAN\nI wish--that I could show them--to the Man,\nThe Lonely Man.\n[The PIPER looks at him and backs away; sits down helplessly and looks\nat him again.\nOh, can I?--\n\nPIPER\nThou!--'T would make me a proud man.\n\nJAN\nOh!  it would make Him smile!\n\n[The Children dance and caper.  TRUDE wakes up and joins them.  Sound\nof distant chanting again.\n\nTRUDE\n  I had a dream!\n\nPIPER\nA dream!\n[Pretending to be amazed.  Reflects, a moment]\n  I know!--Oh, what a funny dream!\n[The Children all fall a-laughing when he does.--Noise without.\nCheat-the-Devil's voice crying, 'Cuckoo--Cuckoo!'\n\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL\nQuick, quick!--I've something here.\n\n[The others roll away a big stone, and enter by the wooden door (rear),\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL.  He does not wear his red hood.  He has a garland round\nhis neck, and a basket on his arm.\n\nPIPER\n[sharply to himself]\n  No Michael yet!\n[To CHEAT-THE-DEVIL]\nMichael!--Where's Michael?\n\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL\n  Look you,--you must wait.\nWe must be cunning.--There's a squirrel, mark you,\nHopped after me!  He would have found us out.\nI wanted him; I loved him.  But I ran.\nFor once a squirrel falls a-talking.--Ah!\nLook what I have.--Guess, guess!\n[Showing his basket to the Children.']\n\nCHILDREN\n  Cakes!\n[He is sad]\n  Shoes!\n[He is sadder]\n  Then--honey!\n[He radiantly undoes his basket, and displays a honeycomb.  The Strollers,\ntoo, rush upon him.\n\nPIPER\nAh, Cheat-the-Devil!  They would crop your ears.\nWhere had you this?\n\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL\n  Why, such a kind old farmer!\nHe'd left his bee-hives; they were all alone;\nAnd the bees know me.  So I brought this for you;\nI knew They 'd like it.--Oh, you're happy now!\n\nPIPER\nBut Michael,--have they caught him?\n\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL\n  Oh, not they!\nI heard no word of Michael; Michael's safe!\nOnce on the road I met a countryman,\nAsked me the way.  And not a word I spoke!\n'Tis far the wisest.  Twenty riddles he asked me.\nI smiled and wagged my head.  Anon cries he,\nThis Fool is deaf and dumb!'--That made me angry,\nBut still I spoke not.--And I would not hurt him!\nHe was a bad man.  But I liked the mule.--\nNow am I safe!--Now am I home at last!\n\nPIPER\n'St.--Met you any people on the way,\nSinging?\n\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL\n  No, growling,--growling dreary psalms\nAll on a sunny day!  Behind the hedges,\nI saw them go.  They go from Hamelin, now;\nAnd I know why!--\n[The PIPER beckons him away from the Children.\n  The mayor's Barbara\nMust go to Rudersheim, to be a Nun!\n\nPIPER\nTo be a Nun!\n\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL\nA penance for them all.\nShe weeps; but she must go!  All they, you see,\nAre wroth against him.--He must give _his_ child--\n\nPIPER\nA nun!\n\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL\n[nodding]\n  Forever!--She, who smiled at Michael.\nLook you, she weeps!  They are bad people all;--\nNothing like these.  [Looking at the Children.\n  These are all beautiful.\n\nPIPER\nTo lock her up!  A maiden, shut away\nOut of the light.  To cage her there for life,\nCut off her hair; pretend that she is dead!--\nHorrible, horrible!  No, I'll not endure it.\nI'll end this murder.--He shall give up his;\nBut never so!--Not so!--While I do live\nTo let things out of cages!--Tell me, quick!--\nWhen shall it happen?\n\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL\n  Why, it falls to-day.\nI saw two herds of people going by,\nTo be there well aforetime, for the sight.\nAnd she is going last of all, at noon;\nAll sparkling, like a Bride.--I heard them tell.\n\nPIPER\nNo, never, never!--No, it shall not be!\nHist!--\n\n[Steps heard scrambling down the entrance-way.\n[Enter MICHAEL in mad haste.  They rush upon him with exultation and\nrelief.  He shakes them off, doggedly.\n\nPIPER\nSo!--You had like to have hanged us.\n\nMICHAEL\n  --What of that?\n\nPIPER\nAll for a lily maiden.\n\nMICHAEL\nAh,--thy pipe!\nHow will it save her?--_Save her_!  Tune thy pipe\nTo compass that!--You do not know--\n\nPIPER\n  I know.\nTell me no more.--I say it shall not be!\nTo heel, lad!  No, I follow,--none but I!\nGo,--go!        [MICHAEL rushes out again.\n[To CHEAT-THE-DEVIL, pointing to the Children]\n  Do you bide here and shepherd these.\n\nCHILDREN\nWhere are you going?--Take us too!--us too!--\nOh, take us with you?--Take us!\n\nPIPER\n[distracted]\n  No, no, no!\nYou shall be kittens all.  And chase your tails,\nTill I come back!--So here!\n\n[Catches HANSEL and affixes to his little jacket a long strip of leather\nfor a tail; then whirls him about.\n\nCHILDREN\n  Me too!--Me too!\n\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL\nLet me make tails,--let me!\n[Seizing shears and leather.]\n\nPIPER\n[wildly]\n  Faith, and you shall.\nA master tailor!--Come, here's food for thought.\nThink all,--\n[To the Strollers]\n  And hold your tongues, there!--\n  If a Cat--\nIf a Cat have--as all men say--Nine Lives,\nAnd if Nine Tailors go to make a Man,\nHow long, then, shall it take one Man turned Tailor\nTo keep a Cat in Tails, until she die?\n[CHEAT-THE-DEVIL looks subdued; the children whirl about.\nBut here's no game for Jan.--Stay!  Something else.--\n[He runs to a wooden coffer, rear, and takes out a long crystal on the\nend of a string, with a glance at the shaft of sunlight from the roof.\nThe Children watch.\n\nBe quiet, now.--Chase not your tails too far,\nTill I come home again.\n\nCHILDREN\nCome home--come home!\n\nPIPER\nAnd you shall see my--\n\nCHILDREN\n  Something Beautiful!\nOh, oh, what is it?--Oh, and will it play?\nWill it play music?\n\nPIPER\nYes.\n[He hangs the crystal in the sun.  A Rainbow strikes the wall.\n  --The best of all!\n\nCHEAT-THE-DEVIL, JAN, CHILDREN\nOh, oh, how beautiful,--how beautiful!\n\nPIPER\nAnd hear it pipe and call, and dance, and sing.\nHeja!--And hark you all.  You have to mind--\nThe Rainbow!\n\n[He climbs out, pipe in hand.  The Children whirl about after their\ntails.--CHEAT-THE-DEVIL, and JAN on his tree-stump, open-mouthed with\nhappiness, watch the Rainbow.\n\n\nCurtain\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II: The Cross-ways: on the Long Road to Rudersheim.\n\nA wooded country: high hills at back.  The place is wild and overgrown,\nlike the haunted spot it is reputed to be.  In the foreground, right,\na ruined stone well appears, in a mass of weeds and vines.  Opposite,\nleft, tall trees and dense thickets.  Where the roads cross (to left of\ncentre), stands a large, neglected shrine, with a weather-worn figure\nof Christ,--again the 'Lonely Man'--facing towards Hamelin.--The stage\nis empty, at rise of the curtain; but the sound of chanting from burghers\njust gone by fades slowly, on the road to Rudersheim.\n\nFrom the hillside at the rear comes the PIPER, wrapped in a long green\ncloak, his pipe in his hand.  He looks after the procession, and back\nto Hamelin.--Enter, springing from the bushes to the right, MICHAEL,\nwho seizes him.\n\nTheir speech goes breathlessly.\n\n\nMICHAEL\n\nQUICK!--tell me--\n\nPIPER\n  Patience.\n\nMICHAEL\n  Patience?--Death and hell!\nOh, save her--save her!  Give the children back.\n\nPIPER\nNever.  Have you betrayed us?\n\nMICHAEL\n  I!--betrayed?\n\nPIPER\nSo, so, lad.\n\nMICHAEL\n  But to save her--\n\nPIPER\n  There's a way,--\nTrust me!  I save her, or we swing together\nMerrily, in a row.--How did you see her?\n\nMICHAEL\nBy stealth: two days ago, at evening,\nHard by the vine-hid wall of her own garden,\nI made a warbling like a nightingale;\nAnd she came out to hear.\n\nPIPER\n  A serenade!\nUnder the halter!\n\nMICHAEL\n  Hush.--A death-black night,\nUntil she came.--Oh, how to tell thee, lad!\nShe came,--she came, not for the nightingale,\nBut even dreaming that it would be I!\n\nPIPER\nShe knew you?--We are trapped, then.\n\nMICHAEL\n  No, not so!\nShe smiled on me.--Dost thou remember how\nShe smiled on me that day?  Alas, poor maid,\nShe took me for some noble in disguise!\nAnd all these days,--she told me,--she had dreamed\nThat I would come to save her!\n\nPIPER\n  Said she this?\n\nMICHAEL\nAll this--all this, and more! . . .\nWhat could lies do?--I lied to her of thee;\nI swore I knew not of thy vanishment,\nNor the lost children.  But I told her true,\nI was a stroller and an outcast man\nThat hid there, like a famished castaway,\nFor one more word, without a hope,--a hope;\nHelpless to save her.\n\nPIPER\n  And she told thee then,\nShe goes to be a nun?\n\nMICHAEL\n  Youth to the grave!\nAnd I--vile nothing--cannot go to save her,\nOnly to look my last--\n\nPIPER\n  Who knows?\n\nMICHAEL\n[bitterly]\n  Ah, thou!--\n\nPIPER\nPoor Nightingale!\n[Fingers Us pipe, noiselessly.]\n\nMICHAEL\n[rapt with grief]\n  Oh, but the scorn of her!\n\nPIPER\nShe smiled on thee.\n\nMICHAEL\n  Until she heard the truth:--\nA juggler,--truly,--and no wandering knight!\nOh, and she wept.\n[Wildly]\n  Let us all hang together.\n\nPIPER\nThanks.  Kindly spoken.--Not this afternoon!\n\nMICHAEL\nThou knowest they are given up for dead?\n\nPIPER\nTruly.\n\nMICHAEL\n  Bewitched?\n\nPIPER\n  So are they.\n\nMICHAEL\n  Sold to the Devil?\n\nPIPER\n[Facing softly up and down, with the restless cunning\nof a squirrel at watch]\nPfui!  But who else?  Of course.  This same old Devil!\nThis kind old Devil takes on him all we do!\nWho else is such a refuge in this world?\nWho could have burned the abbey in this place,\nWhere holy men did live?  Why, 't was the Devil!\nAnd who did guard us one secluded spot\nBy burying a wizard at this cross-ways?--\nSo none dare search the haunted, evil place!\nThe Devil for a landlord!--So say I!\nAnd all we poor, we strollers, for his tenants;\nWe gypsies and we pipers in the world,\nAnd a few hermits and sword-swallowers,\nAnd all the cast-aways that Holy Church\nMust put in cages--cages--to the end!\n[To Michael, who is overcome]\nTake heart!  I swear,--by all the stars that chime!\nI'll not have things in Cages!\n\nMICHAEL\n  Barbara!\nSo young,--so young and beautiful!\n\nPIPER\n  And fit\nTo marry with friend Michael!\n\nMICHAEL\n  Do not mock.\n\nPIPER\nI mock not.--(Baa--Baa--Barbara!)\n\nMICHAEL\n  Ay, she laughed,\nOn that first day.  But still she gazed.--I saw\nHer, all the while!  I swallowed--\n\nPIPER\n  Prodigies!\nA thousand swallows, and no summer yet!\nBut now,--'t is late to ask,--why did you not\nSwallow her father?--That had saved us all.\n\nMICHAEL\nThey will be coming soon.  They will cut off\nAll her bright hair,--and wall her in forever.\n\nPIPER\nNever.  They shall not.\n\nMICHAEL\n[dully]\n  Will you give them back,\n_Now_?\n\nPIPER\nI will never give them back.  Be sure.\n\nMICHAEL\nAnd she is made an offering for the town!\nI heard it of the gossips.--They have sworn\nJacobus shall not keep his one ewe-lamb\nWhile all the rest go childless.\n\nPIPER\n  And I swear\nThat he shall give her up,--to none but thee!\n\nMICHAEL\nYou cannot do it!\n\nPIPER\n  Have I lived like Cain,\nBut to make good one hour of Life and Sun?\nAnd have I got this Hamelin in my hands,\nTo make it pay its thousand cruelties\nWith such a fool's one-more? . . .\n--You know right well,\n'T was not the thousand guilders that I wanted\nFor thee, or me, or any!--Ten would serve.\nBut there it ached; _there_, in the money-bag\nThat serves the town of Hamelin for an heart!\nThat stab was mortal!  And I thrust it deep.\nLife, life, I wanted; safety,--sun and wind!--\nAnd but to show them how that daily fear\nThey call their faith, is made of blasphemies\nThat would put out the Sun and Moon and Stars,\nEarly, for some last Judgment!\n[He laughs, up to the tree-tops]\n  And the Lord,\nWhere will He get His harpers and singing-men\nAnd them that laugh for joy?--From Hamelin guilds?--\nWill you imagine Kurt the Councillor\nTrying to sing?\n[He looks at his pipe again; then listens intently.\n\nMICHAEL\n  His lean throat freeze!--But she--\nBarbara! Barbara!--\n\nPIPER\n  Patience.  She will come,\nDressed like a bride.\n\nMICHAEL\n  Ah, do not mock me so.\n\nPIPER\nI mock not.\n\nMICHAEL\nShe will never look at me.\n\nPIPER\nRather than be a nun, I swear she will\nLook at thee twice,--and with a long, long look.\n[Chant approaches in the distance, coming from Hamelin.\n\nVOICES\nDies irae, dies illa\nSolvet saeclum in favilla,\nTeste David cum Sibylla.\n\nQuantus tremor est futurus,\nQuando judex est venturus,\nCuncta stricte discussurus!\n\nPIPER\nBah, how they whine!  Why do they drag it so?\n\nMICHAEL\n[overcome]\nOh, can it be the last of all?  O Saints!--\nO blessed Francis, Ursula, Catherine!\nHubert--and Crispin--Pantaleone--Paul!\nGeorge o' the Dragon!--Michael the Archangel!\n\nPIPER\nMichael Sword-eater, canst not swallow a chant?\nThe well, the well!--Take care.\n\nVOICES\n[nearer]\n  Inter oves locum praesta,\n  Et ab hoedis me sequestra,\n  Statuens in parte dextra.\n\n  Confutatis maledictis,\n  Flammis acribus addictis:\n  Voca me cum benedictis.\n\n[MICHAEL climbs down the ancient well, reaching his head up warily,\nto see.\n\nThe PIPER waves to him debonairly, points to the tree-tops, left,\nand stands a moment showing in his face his disapproval of the\nmusic. He fingers his pipe. As the hymn draws near, he scrambles\namong the bushes, left, and disappears.\n\nEnter slowly, chanting, the company of burghers from Hamelin,--men\ntogether first, headed by priests; then the women.--ANSELM and all\nthe townsfolk appear (saving VERONIKA, the wife of KURT); JACOBUS\nis meek; KURT very stern.--As they appear, the piping of the Dance-spell\nbegins softly, high in air.  The hymn wavers; when the first burghers\nreach the centre of the stage, it breaks down.\n\nThey look up, bewildered: then, with every sign of consternation,\nstruggle, and vacant fear, they begin to dance, willy-nilly.  Their\nfaces work; they struggle to walk on; but it is useless.  The music\nwhirls them  irresistibly into a rhythmic pace of 3/4 time, and\njogs their words, when they try to speak, into the same dance-measure.\nOne by one,--two and two they go,--round and round like corks at first,\nwith every sign of struggle and protest, then off, on the long road\nto Rudersheim.  Fat priests waltz together.--KURT the fierce and\nJACOBUS the sleek hug each other in frantic endeavor to be released.\nTheir words jolt insanely.\n\nKURT, JACOBUS\n\n  (  No, no.--No, no--No, no.--No, no!\n  (  Yes, yes.--I, yes.--Yes, yes.--Yes, yes!\n\nSOME\n  (  _La--crymos--a--Dies--ill--_\n  (  Bewitched--the Devil!--bewitched--bewitched!\n  (  I will not--will not--will--I will!\n  (  No, no--but where!--Help--help!--To arms!\n\nOTHERS\n  (  _Suppli--canti--suppli--Oh_!\n  (  To Hamelln--back--to Hamelln--stay!\n  (  No, no!--No, no,--Away,--away!\n[They dance out, convulsively, towards Rudersheim.\nKURT and JACOBUS, still whirling, cry,--\n\nJACOBUS, KURT\n  (  Yes, yes!--yes, yes!--Let go--let go--\n  (  No, no!--I will not--No! . . . No\n\n[Exeunt left, dancing.\n\nOTHERS\n  (  Keep time, keep time!  Have mercy!--Time!\n  (  Oh, let me--go!--Let go--let go!\n  (  Yes, yes--Yes, yes--No, no--no--no!\n\n[BARBARA appears, pale and beautiful;--richly dressed in white,\nwith flowing locks.  She is wan and exhausted.--The dance-mania,\nas it seizes her, makes her circle slowly and dazedly with a\ncertain pitiful silliness.  The nuns and monks accompanying her\npoint in horror.  But they, too, dance off with each other,\nwilly-nilly,--like leaves in a tempest.  BARBARA is left alone,\nstill circling slowly.  The piping sounds softer.  She staggers\nagainst a tree, and keeps on waving her hands and turning her head,\nvaguely, in time.\n\nMICHAEL looks forth from the well; then climbs out and approaches her.\n\nMICHAEL\n\nShe is so beautiful,--how dare, I tell her?\nMy heart, how beautiful!  The blessed saint! . . .\nFear nothing, fairest Lady.--You are saved.\n[She looks at him unseeingly, and continues to dance.--He holds\nout his arms to stop her.\nPray you, the danger's gone. Pray you, take breath!\nPoor, shining dove,--I would not hold thee here,\nAgainst thy wish.--'Tis Michael, the sword-eater.\n[The piping ceases.]\n\nBARBARA\n[murmuring]\nYes, yes--I must--I must--I must. . .\n[Reenter the PIPER from the thickets.]\n\nMICHAEL\nLook, I will guard you like a princess, here;\nYes, like Our Lady's rose-vine.\n\nBARBARA\n[gasping]\n  Ah, my heart!\n[The PIPER comes towards her.  She sees him and holds out\nher arms, crying:--\nOh, he has saved me!--I am thine--thine--thine!\n[Falls into his arms half-fainting.  The PIPER\nstands amazed, alarmed, chagrined.\n\nPIPER\nMine?\n\nMICHAEL\n[furiously]\n_Thine_?--So was it?  All a trap?  Cock's blood!\nThine, thine!--And thou hast piped her wits away.\nThine!\n\nPIPER\n[holding her off]\n  No, not mine!\n\nBARBARA\n[to him]\nWhy did you steal me hence?\nWhen did you love me?--Was it on first sight?\n\nPIPER\n[confounded]\nI, love thee?\n\nMICHAEL\n  --Knave!  thief!  liar!\n\nPIPER\n  --Give me breath.\n[Holds off BARBARA gently.]\n\nBARBARA\nWhere are you taking me?\n\nPIPER\n  I?  Taking thee?\n\nMICHAEL\n[to her]\nHe shall not steal thee!\n\nBARBARA\n[in a daze]\n  I must follow him.\n\nPIPER\nNo! 'T is too much.  You shall not follow me!\nI'll not be followed.--Damsel, sit you down.\nHere is too much!  I love you not.\n\nBARBARA\n[wonderingly]\n  You do not?\nWhy did you pipe to me?\n\nMICHAEL\n  --And steal her wits,\nStealer of all the children!\n\nBARBARA\n[vaguely]\n  Are they safe?\n\nPIPER\n[to MICHAEL]\nOh, your good faith!--\n[To her]\n  They're safe.\n\nBARBARA\n  I knew--I knew it!\n\nPIPER\nAnd so art thou.  But never shall they go\nTo Hamelin more; and never shale thou go\nTo be a nun.\n\nBARBARA\nTo be a nun,--no, no!  Ah me, I'm spent.\nSir, take me with you.\n\nMICHAEL\n[still enraged to the PIPES]\n  Rid her of the spell!\nIs this thy pledge?\n\nPIPER\n[distracted]\n  I do but rub my wits--\nTo think--to think.\n[To himself]\n  What shall I do with her,\nNow that she's here!--Suppose her bound to stay!\n[To them]\nHearken.--You, Michael, on to Rudersheim--\n\nMICHAEL\nAnd leave her here?  No, no!\n\nPIPER\n  Then take the girl.\n\nBARBARA\nTo Rudersheim?  No, never, never!\n\nPIPER\n  Well . . .\nHearken.--There is the hermit, over the hill.\n[Apart, wildly]\nBut how--suppose she will not marry him?\nI will not take her where the children are.\nAnd yet--\n[An idea strikes him.  To her]\nHark, now;--hark, now, and tell me truly;\nCan you spin cloth?\n\nBARBARA\n[amazed]\nI?  Spin?\n\nPIPER\n[eagerly]\n  Can you make shoes?\n\nBARBARA\nI--_I_ make shoes!--Fellow!\n\nPIPER\n  So.\n\nMICHAEL\n  Art thou mad!\n\nPIPER\nWith me you may not go!  But you'll be safe.\nHearken:--you, Michael, go to Rudersheim;\nAnd tell the nuns--\n\nBARBARA\n  No, no!  I dare not have it!\nOh, they would send and take me!  No, no, no!\n\nPIPER\nWould you go back to Hamelin?\n\nBARBARA\n  No--no--no!\nAh, I am spent.\n[Droops towards the PIPER; falters and sinks down on the bank\nbeside the well, in a swoon.--The PIPER is abashed and rueful\nfor the moment.\n\nMICHAEL\nAll this, your work!\n\nPIPER\n[looking at her closely]\n  Not mine.\nThis is no charm.  It is all youth and grief,\nAnd weariness.  And she shall follow you.--\nTell the good nuns you found her sore bewitched,\nHere in this haunt of 'devils';--clean distraught.\nNo Church could so receive a dancing nun!\nTell them thou art an honest, piteous man\nDesires to marry her.\n\nMICHAEL\n  Marry the Moon!\n\nPIPER\nNo, no, the Moon for me!--She shall be yours;\nAnd here she sleeps, until her wits be sound.\n[He spreads his cloak over her, gently]\nThe sun's still high.  'T is barely afternoon.--\n[Looks at the sunshine.  A thought strikes him with sudden dismay]\n'T is--no, the time is going!--On my life,\nI had forgot Them!--And They will not stay\nAfter the Rainbow fades.\n\nMICHAEL\n[confounded]\nArt thou moon-mad?\n\nPIPER\n[madly]\nNo.  Stir not!  Keep her safe!  I come anon.\nBut first I go.--They'll not mind Cheat-the-Devil!\nThey'll creep, to find out where the Rainbow went.\nI know them!  So would I!--They'll all leak out!\n\nMICHAEL\nStay--stay!\n\nPIPER\n  No; guard her, you!--Anon, anon!\n\nMICHAEL\nBut you will pipe her up and after you!\n\nPIPER\n[flinging him the pipe from his belt]\nDo you fear this?  Then keep it till I come.\nYou bide!--The Other cannot.\n\nMICHAEL\nWho?\n\nPIPER\n  The Rainbow,\nThe Rainbow!--\n\n[He runs madly up the hillside, and away.]\n\n\nCurtain\n\n\n\n\nACT III\n\nSCENE: The same, later.  BARBARA lies motionless, still\nsleeping.--MICHAEL, sitting on the bank opposite, fingers\nthe pipe with awe and wistfulness.  He blows softly upon it;\nthen looks at the girl hopefully.  She does not stir.\n\nEnter the PIPER, from the hills at back.  He carries a pair of\nwater-jars slung over his shoulders, and seems to be in high feather.\n\nPIPER\n[singing]\nOut of your cage,\nCome out of your cage\nAnd take your soul on a pilgrimage!\nPease in your shoes, an if you must!--\nBut out and away, before you're dust:\n  Scribe and Stay-at-home,\n  Saint and Sage,\n  Out of your cage,\n  Out of your cage!--\n[He feigns to be terror-struck at sight of the pipe\nin Michael's hands]\nHo, help!  Good Michael, Michael, loose the charm!\nMichael, have mercy!  I'm bewitched!--\n\nMICHAEL\n[giving him the pipe]\n  Cock's faith!\nStill mocking!--Well ye know, it will not play\nSuch games for me.\n\nPIPER\n  Be soothed,--'twas as I guessed,\n[Unslings the jars]\nAll of them hungry,--and the Rainbow going;--\n\nAnd Cheat-the-Devil pining in a corner.\n'Twas well I went: they were for leaking out,\nAnd then,--lopped ears for two!\n\nMICHAEL\n  Oh, that will come.\n\nPIPER\nNever believe it!  We have saved her, look you;\nWe save them all!  No prison walls again,\nFor anything so young, in Hamelin there.\nWake her, and see.\n\nMICHAEL\n  Ay, wake her.  But for me,\nHer sleep is gentler.\n\nPIPER\n[comfortingly]\n  Nay, but wait.--Good faith,\nWait.  We have broke the bars of iron now;\nStill there are golden!--'Tis her very self\nIs caged within herself.  Once coax her out,\nOnce set her own heart free!--\n\nMICHAEL\n  Wake her, and see!\n[The PIPER crosses, humming.]\n\nPIPER\nMind your eyes, tune your tongue!\nLet it never be said, but sung, but sung,\n  'Out of your cage, out of your cage!'\n  Maiden, maiden,--\n[He wakes her gently.  BARBARA sits up, plainly bewildered;\nthen she sees the PIPER, and says happily:--\n\nBARBARA\nOh!--you have come to save me.  They are gone.\nAll this, for love of me!\n\nPIPER\n[ruefully]\n  No, no--I--No!\n\nBARBARA\nYou--you are robbers?\n[Her hands go to the pearls about her neck.]\n\nPIPER\n[indignant]\n  No!  Blood on the Moon!\nThis is the maddest world I ever blinked at.--\nFear nothing, maiden.  I will tell you all.\nCome, sit you down; and Michael shall keep watch\nFrom yonder hillock, lest that any pass.\nFear nothing.  None will pass: they are too sure\nThe Devil hath this cross-ways!--Sit you down.\n\n[MICHAEL watches, with jealous wistfulness, from the road (left\nrear).--BARBARA half fearfully sits up, on the bank by the well.\n\nBARBARA\nNot love?  And yet . . . you do not want my pearls?\nThen why--\n\nPIPER\n  For why should all be love or money?\nMoney!  Oho,--that mouldy thousand guilders\nYou think of!--But it was your Hamelin friends\nThat loved the guilders, and not I.\n\nBARBARA\n  Then why--\nWhy did you steal me hence?\n\nPIPER\n  Why did yourself\nLong to be stolen?\n\nBARBARA\n[shuddering]\n  Ah! to be shut up. . .\nForever,--young--alive!\n\nPIPER\n  Alive and singing;\nYoung,--young;--and four thick walls and no more sun,\nNo music, and no wandering, and no life!\nThink you, I would not steal ail things alive\nOut of such doom?--How can I breathe and laugh\nWhile there are things in cages?--You are free;\nAnd you shall never more go back again.\n\nBARBARA\nAnd you, who are you then?\n\nPIPER\n  How do _I_ know?\nMoths in the Moon!--Ask me a thing in reason.\n\nBARBARA\nAnd 't was not . . . that you loved me.\n\nPIPER\n  Loved thee?  No!--\nSave but along with squirrels, and bright fish,\nAnd bubbling water.\n\nBARBARA\nThen where shall I go?\n\nPIPER\nOh, little bird,--is that your only song?\nGo?  Everywhere!  Here be no walls, no hedges,\nNo tolls, no taxes,--rats nor aldermen!\nGo, say you?  Round the world, and round again!\n[Apart]\n--Ah, she was Hamelin-born.\n[He watches her]\n  But there's a man,--\nSky-true, sword-strong, and brave to look upon;\nOne that would thrust his hand in dragon's mouth\nFor your bright sake; one that would face the Devil,\nWould swallow fire--\n\nBARBARA\n  You would?\n\nPIPER\n[desperately]\n  _I_?--No, not I!\nMichael,--yon goodman Michael.\n\nBARBARA\n[bitterly]\nA stroller!---oh, nought but a wandering man.\n\nPIPER,\nWell, would you have a man take root, I ask?\n\nBARBARA\nThat swallows swords. . . .\n\nPIPER\n  Is he a comely man?\n\nBARBARA\nThat swallows swords!--\n\nPIPER\n  What's manlier to swallow?\nDid he but swallow pancakes, were that praise?\nPancakes and sausage, like your Hamelin yokels?\nHe swallows fire and swords, I say, and more.\nAnd yet this man hath for a whole noon-hour\nGuarded you while you slept;--still as a dove,\nDistant and kind as shadow; giant-strong\nFor his enchanted princess,--even you.\n\nBARBARA\nSo you bewitched me, then.\n\nPIPER\n[wildly]\n  How do I know?\n\nBARBARA\nWhere are the children?\n\nPIPER\n  I'll not tell you that.\nYou are too much of Hamelin.\n\nBARBARA\n  You bewitched them!\n\nPIPER\nYes, so it seems.  But how?--Upon my life,\n'T is more than I know,--yes, a little more.\n[Rapidly: half in earnest and half in whimsy]\nSometimes it works, and sometimes no.  There are\nSome things upon my soul, I cannot do.\n[Watching her.]\n\nBARBARA\n[expectantly]\nNot even with thy pipe?\n\nPIPER\n  Not even so.\nSome are too hard.--Yet, yet, I love to try:\nAnd most, to try with all the hidden charms\nI have, that I have never counted through.\n\nBARBARA\n[fascinated]\nWhere are they?\n\nPIPER\n[touching his heart]\n  Here.\n\nBARBARA\nWhat are they?\n\nPIPER\n  How do I know?\nIf I knew all, why should I care to live?\nNo, no!  The game is What-Will-Happen-Next?\n\nBARBARA\nAnd what will happen?\n\nPIPER\n[tantalizingly]\n  Ah! how do I know?\nIt keeps me searching.  'T is so glad and sad\nAnd strange to find out, What-Will-Happen-Next!\nAnd mark you this: the strangest miracle. . .\n\nBARBARA\nYes!--\n\nPIPER\nStranger than the Devil or thy Judgment;\nStranger than piping,--even when _I_ pipe!\nStranger than charming mice--or even men--\n\nBARBARA\n[with tense expectancy]\nWhat is it?  What?\n\nPIPER\n[watching her]\n  Why,--what may come to pass\nHere in the heart.  There is one very charm--\n\nBARBARA\nOh!\n\nPIPER\nAre you brave?\n\nBARBARA\n[awe-struck]\n  Oh!\n\nPIPER\n[slowly]\nWill you drink the philter?\n\nBARBARA\n'Tis. . . some enchantment?\n\nPIPER\n[mysteriously]\n'T is a love philter.\n\nBARBARA\nOh, tell me first--\n\nPIPER\n  Why, sooth, the only charm\nIn it, is Love.  It is clear well-water.\n\nBARBARA\n[disappointed]\nOnly well-water?\n\nPIPER\n  Love is only Love.\nIt must be philters, then?\n[He comes down smiling and beckons to MICHAEL, who draws near, bewildered.\n  This lady thirsts\nFor magic!\n[He ties a long green scarf that he has over his shoulder, to a\nwater-jar, and lowers it down the old well; while BARBARA watches,\nawe-struck.  He continues to sing softly.\n  _Mind your eyes_,\n  _Tune your tongue_;\n  _Let it never he said_,\n  _But sung,--but sung_!--\n\nMICHAEL\n[to BARBARA, timidly]\n  I am glad at least, fair lady,\nTo think how my poor show did give you pleasure\nThat day--that day when--\n\nBARBARA\n  Ah! that day of doom!\n\nMICHAEL\nWhat is your will?\n\nBARBARA\n[passionately]\n  I know not; and I care not!\n[Apart]\nOh, it is true.--And he a sword-eater!\n[The PIPER hauls up the jar, full of water.]\n\nPIPER\nMichael, your cup.\n\n[MICHAEL gives him a drinking-horn from his belt.  The PIPER fills it\nwith water, solemnly, and turns to BARBARA, who is at first defiant,\nthen fascinated.\n  Maiden, your ears.  So:--hearken.\nBefore you drink of this, is it your will\nForever to be gone from Hamelin?\n\nBARBARA\nI must,--I must.\n\nPIPER\nYour mother?\n\nBARBARA\n[piteously]\n  I have no mother;\nNor any father, more.  He gave me up.\n\nPIPER\nThat did he!--For a round one thousand guilders!\nWeep not, I say.  First, loose you, heart and shoes,\nFrom Hamelin.  Put off now, the dust, the mould,\nThe cobble-stones, the little prying windows;\nThe streets that dream o' _What the Neighbors Say_.\nThink you were never born there.  Think some Breath\nWakened you early--early on one morning,\nDeep in a Garden (but you knew not whose),\nWhere voices of wild waters bubbling ran,\nShaking down music from glad mountain-tops,--\nWhere the still peaks were burning in the dawn,\nLike fiery snow,--down into greenest valleys,\nThat do off their blue mist only to show\nSome deeper blue, some haunt of violets.\nNo voice you heard, nothing you felt or saw,\nSave in your heart, the tumult of young birds,\nA nestful of wet wings and morning-cries,\nThrobbing for flight! . . .\nThen,--for your Soul, new wakened, felt athirst,\nYou turned to where that call of water led,\nLaughing for truth,--all truth and star-like laughter!\nBeautiful water, that will never stay,\nBut runs and laughs and sparkles in the heart,\nAnd sends live laughter trickling everywhere,\nAnd knows the thousand longings of the Earth!\nAnd as you drank it then, so now, drink here;\n\n[He reaches her the horn.  She has listened, motionless, like a thing\nbewitched, her eyes fixed and wide, as if she were sleep-walking.  She\ndrinks.  MICHAEL stands near, also motionless.  When she speaks, it\nis in a younger voice, shy, sweet and full of wonder.\n\nAnd tell me,--tell me, you,--what happened then?\nWhat do you see?\n\nBARBARA\nAh!--\n[She looks before her with wide, new eyes.]\n\nPIPER\n  Do you see--a--\n\nBARBARA\n  . . .Michael!\n\nPIPER\nSo!--And a good one.  And you call him?\n\nBARBARA\n  . . . Michael.\n\nPIPER\nSo.--'Tis a world of wonders, by my faith!--\nWhat is the fairest thing you see but--\n\nBARBARA\n  Michael.\n\nPIPER\nAnd is he comely as a man should be?\nAnd strong?--And wears good promise in his eyes,\nAnd keeps it with his heart and with his hands?\n[She nods like a child]\nAnd would you fear to go with him?--\n\nBARBARA\n  No, no!\n\nPIPER\nThen reach to him that little hand of yours.\n\n[MICHAEL, wonder-struck, runs to the jar, pours water upon his hand,\nrubs it off with haste, and falls on his knees before her, taking her\nhand fearfully.\n\nBARBARA\n[timidly]\nAnd can he talk?--\n\nPIPER\nYes, yes.--The maid's bewildered.\nFear nothing.  Thou'rt so dumb, man!--Yes, yes, yes.\nOnly he kneels; he cannot yet believe.\nSpeak roundly to him.--Will you go with him?\nHe will be gentler to you than a father:\nHe would be brothers five, and dearest friend,\nAnd sweetheart,--ay, and knight and serving-man!\n\nBARBARA\nYes, yes, I know he will.  And can he talk, too?\n\nPIPER\nLady, you have bewitched him.\n\nMICHAEL\n  Oh! dear Lady,\nWith you--with you, I dare not ope my mouth\nSaving to sing, or pray!\n\nPIPER\n  Let it be singing!\nLad, 't is a wildered maiden, with no home\nSave only thee; and she is more a child\nThan yesterday.\n\nMICHAEL\n  Oh, lordly, wondrous world!--\nHow is it, Sweet, you smile upon me now?\n\nBARBARA\nSure I have ever smiled on thee.  How not?\nArt thou not Michael?--_And thou lovest me_.\n_And I love thee_!--If I unloved thee ever,\nIt was some spell.--\n[Rapturously]\n  But this,--ah, _This is I_!\n[MICHAEL, on his knees, winds his arms about her.\n\nPIPER\n[softly]\nIt is all true,--all true.  Lad, do not doubt;\nThe golden cage is broken.\n\nMICHAEL\n  Oh! more strange\nThan morning dreams!  I am like one new-born;\nI am a speechless babe.--And this is she,\nMy Moon I cried for,--here,--\n\nPIPER\n  It is thy bride.\n\nMICHAEL\nThou wilt not fear to come with me?\n\nBARBARA\nWith thee?\nWith thee!  Ah, look!  What have I more than thee?\nAnd thou art mine, tall fellow!  How comes it now\nRight happily that I am pranked so fair!\n[She touches her fineries, her long pearl-strings, joyously]\nAnd all this came so near to burying;\nThis!\n\nMICHAEL\n  And this dearer gold.\n[Kissing her hair.]\n\nBARBARA\n  All, all for thee!--\n[She leans over in a playful rapture and\nbinds her hair about him]\nLook,--I will be thy garden that we lost,\nYea, everywhere,--in every wilderness.\nThere shall none fright us with a flaming sword!\nBut I will be thy garden!\n\n[There is the sound of a herd-bell approaching.\n\nPIPER\nSee,--how the sunlight soon shall pour red wine\nTo make your marriage-feast!--And do you hear\nThat faery bell?--No fear!--'T is some white creature,\nSeeking her whiter lamb.--Go; find our hermit;\nAnd he shall bless you,--as a hermit can!\nAnd be your pledge for shelter.  There's the path.--\n[To MICHAEL]\nFollow each other, close!\n\nMICHAEL\n  Beyond the Sun!\n\nPIPER\nA golden afternoon,--and all is well!\n\n[He gives MICHAEL his cloak to wrap round BARBARA.  They go, hand\nin hand, up into the hills,  The herd-bell sounds softly.--The PIPER\ncocks his head like a squirrel, and listens with delight.  He watches\nthe two till they disappear; then comes down joyously.\n\nPIPER\nIf you can only catch them while they're young!\n\n[The herd-bell sounds nearer.  He lets down a water-jar into the well\nagain.  The nearness of the hell startles him.  He becomes watchful\nas a wild creature.  It sounds nearer and nearer.  A woman's voice\ncalls like the wind: 'Jan! Jan!'--\nThe PIPER, tense and cautious, moves softly down into the shrubbery\nby the well.\n\nVERONIKA'S VOICE\nJan!\n\nPIPER\n  Hist! Who dared?\n\nVERONIKA'S VOICE\n. . . Jan!--\n\nPIPER\n  Who dared, I say?\nA woman.--'T is a woman!\n\n[Enter VERONIKA, on the road from Hamelin.  She is very pale and\nworn, and drags herself along, clutching in her hand a herd-bell.\nShe looks about her, holds up the bell and shakes it once softly,\ncovering it with her fingers again; then she sits wearily down\nat the foot of the ruined shrine and covers her face, with a sharp\nbreath.\n\nVERONIKA\n  . . . Ah,--ah,--ah!\n[The PIPER watches with breathless wonder and fascination.  It seems\nto horrify him.\n\nPIPER\n[under breath]\nThat woman!\n\n[VERONIKA lifts her head suddenly and sees the motion of the bushes.\n\nVERONIKA\nHe is coming!--He is here!\n[She darts towards the well.--The PIPER springs up.\nOh, God of Mercy! . . . It is only you!\nWhere is he?--Where?--Where are you hiding him?\n\nPIPER\n[confusedly]\nWoman . . . what do you, wandering, with that bell?\nThat herd-bell?\n\nVERONIKA\nOh! are you man or cloud? . . . Where is my Jan?\nJan,--Jan,--the little lame one!  He is mine.\nHe lives, I know he lives.  I know--yes, yes,\nYou've hidden him.  I will be patient.--Yes.\n\nPIPER\nSurely he lives!\n\nVERONIKA\n  --_Lives_! will you swear it?  Ah,--\nI will believe!  But he . . . is not so strong\nAs all the others.\n\nPIPER\n[apart]\n  Aie, how horrible!\n[To her]\nSit you down here.  You cannot go away\nWhile you are yet so pale.  Why are you thus?\n[She looks at him distractedly.]\n\nVERONIKA\nYou, who have torn the hearts out of our bodies\nAnd left the city like a place of graves,--\nWhy am I spent?--Ah, ah!--But he's alive!\nYes, yes, he's living.\n\nPIPER\n  Oh, how horrible!\nWhy should he not be living?--What am I?\n\nVERONIKA\nI do not know.\n\nPIPER\n  Do you take me for the Devil?\n\nVERONIKA\nI do not know.\n\nPIPER\n  Yet you were not afraid?\n\nVERONIKA\nWhat is there now to fear?\n\nPIPER\n[watching her]\n  Where are the townsfolk?\n\nVERONIKA\nThey are all gone to Rudersheim. . .\n\nPIPER\n[still watchful]\n  How so?\n\nVERONIKA\nWhere, for a penance, Barbara, Jacob's daughter,\nWill take the veil.  His one, for all of ours!\nIt will be over now.\n\nPIPER\n  Have none returned?\n\nVERONIKA\nI know not; I am searching, since the dawn.\n\nPIPER\nTo-day?\n\nVERONIKA\nAnd every day.\nPIPER\n  That herd-bell, there\nWhy do you bring it?\n\nVERONIKA\n[sobbing]\nOh, he loves them so.\nI knew, if he but heard it, he would follow--\n\nPIPER\nNo more.  I know!\n\nVERONIKA\n  An if he could!\n\nPIPER\n[like a wounded animal]\n  You hurt me\nSomewhere,--you hurt me!\n\nVERONIKA\n  You!--A man of air?\n\nPIPER\nWhat, am I that?\n\nVERONIKA\nWhat are you?--Give them back!\nGive them to me, I say.  You have them hidden.\nAre they all living?\n\nPIPER\n[struggling with pity]\n  Yes, yes.\n\nVERONIKA\n  Give them back!\n\nPIPER\nNo.\n\nVERONIKA\nBut they live, they live?\n\nPIPER\n  --Wilt thou believe me?\n\nVERONIKA\nAnd are they safe?\n\nPIPER\n  Yes.\n\nVERONIKA\n  And you hide them?\n\nPIPER\n  Yes.\n\nVERONIKA\nAnd are they . . . warm?\n\nPIPER\n  --Yes.\n\nVERONIKA\n  Are they happy?--Oh,\nThat cannot be!--But do they laugh, sometimes?\n\nPIPER\nYes.\n\nVERONIKA\n--Then you'll give them back again!\n\nPIPER\nNo, never.\n\nVERONIKA\n[Half to herself, distraught between suspense and hope]\nI must be patient.\n\nPIPER\n  Woman, they all are mine.\nI hold them in my hands; they bide with me.\nWhat's breath and blood,--what are the hearts of children,\nTo Hamelin,--while it heaps its money-bags?\n\nVERONIKA\nYou cared not for the money.\n\nPIPER\n  No?--You seem\nA foreign woman,--come from very far,\nThat you should know.\n\nVERONIKA\n  I know. I was not born\nThere.  But you wrong them.  There were yet a few\nWho would have dealt with you more honestly\nThan this Jacobus, or--\n\nPIPER\n  Or Kurt the Syndic!\nBelieve It not.  Those two be tongue and brain\nFor the whole town!  I know them.  And that town\nStands as the will of other towns, a score,\nThat make us wandering poor the things we are!\nIt stands for all, unto the end of time,\nThat turns this bright world black and the Sun cold,\nWith hate, and hoarding;--all-triumphant Greed\nThat spreads above the roots of all despair,\nAnd misery, and rotting of the soul!\nNow shall they learn--if money-bags can learn--\nWhat turns the bright world black, and the Sun cold;\nAnd what's that creature that they call a child!--\nAnd what this winged thing men name a heart\nBeating queer rhythms that they long to kill.--\nWhat is this hunger and this thirst to sing,\nTo laugh, to fight,--to hope, to be believed?\nAnd what is truth?  And who did make the stars?\n\n     *     *     *    *     *\n\nI have to pay for fifty thousand hates,\nGreeds, cruelties; such barbarous tortured days\nA tiger would disdain;--for all my kind!\nNot my one mother, not my own of kin,--\nAll, all, who wear the motley in the heart\nOr on the body:--for all caged glories\nAnd trodden wings, and sorrows laughed to scorn.\nI,--I!--At last.\n\nVERONIKA\n  Ah, me! How can I say:\nYet make them happier than they let you be?\n\nPIPER\nWoman, you could!--They know not how to be\nHappy!  They turn to darkness and to woe\nAll that is made for joy.  They deal with men\nAs, far across the mountains, in the south,\nMen trap a singing thrush, put out his eyes,--\nAnd cage him up and bid him then to sing--\nSing before God that made him,--yes, to sing!\n\n     *     *     *    *     *\n\nI save the children.--Yes, I save them, so,\nSave them forever, who shall save the world!--\nYes, even Hamelin.--\n  But for only _you_,\nWhat do they know of Children?--Pfui, _their own_!\nWho knows a treasure, when it is his own?\nDo they not whine: '_Five mouths around the table_;\n_And a poor harvest.  And now comes one more_!\n_God chastens us_!'--Pfui!--\n\nVERONIKA\n[apart, dully]\n  . . . But I must be patient.\n\nPIPER\nYou know, you know, that not one dared, save you,--\nDared all alone, to search this devil's haunt.\n\nVERONIKA\nThey would have died--\n\nPIPER\n  But never risked their _souls_!\nThat knew I also.\n\nVERONIKA\nAh!\n\nPIPER\n'Young faces,' sooth,\nThe old ones prate of!--Bah, what is't they want?\n'Some one to work for me, when I am old;\nSome one to follow me unto my grave;\nSome one--for me!'  Yes, yes.  There is not one\nOld huddler-by-the-fire would shift his seat\nTo a cold corner, if it might bring back\nAll of the Children in one shower of light!\n\nVERONIKA\nThe old, ah, yes!  But not--\n\nPIPER\n  The younger men?\nAha!  Their pride to keep the name alive;\nThe name, the name, the little Hamelin name,\nTied to the trade;--carved plain upon his gravestone!\nWonderful!  If your name must chain you, live,\nTo your gaol of a house, your trade you love not,--why,\nBest go without a name, like me!--How now?\nWoman,--you suffer?\n\nVERONIKA\n  Ah, yet could I laugh,\nPiper, yet could I laugh, for one true word,--\nBut not of all men.\n\nPIPER\n  Then of whom?\n\nVERONIKA\n  Of Kurt.\n\nPIPER\nBah, Kurt the Councillor! a man to curse.\n\nVERONIKA\nHe is my husband.\n\nPIPER\n[shortly]\n  Thine?  I knew it not.\nThine?  But it cannot be.  He could not father\nThat little Jan,--that little shipwrecked Star.\n\nVERONIKA\nOh, then you love him?  You will give him back?\n\nPIPER\nThe son of Kurt?\n\nVERONIKA\nNo, not _his_ son!  No, no.\nHe is all mine, all mine.  Kurt's sons are straight,\nAnd ruddy, like Kurt's wife of Hamelin there,\nWho died before.\n\nPIPER\nAnd you were wed. . .\n\nVERONIKA\n  So young,\nIt is all like some dream before the sunrise,\nThat left me but that little shipwrecked Star.\n\nPIPER\nWhy did you marry Kurt the Councillor?\n\nVERONIKA\n[humbly]\nHe wanted me.  Once I was beautiful.\n\nPIPER\n[wonderingly]\nWhat, more than now?\n\nVERONIKA\n  Mock if you will.\n\nPIPER\n  I mock you;\nO Woman, . . . you are very beautiful.\n\nVERONIKA\nI meant, with my poor self, to buy him house\nAnd warmth, and softness for his little feet.\nOh, then I knew not,--when we sell our hearts,\nWe buy us nothing.\n\nPIPER\n  Now you know.\n\nVERONIKA\n  I know.\nHis dearest home it was, to keep my heart\nAlone and beautiful, and clear and still;\nAnd to keep all the gladness in my heart,\nThat bubbled from nowhere!--for him to drink;--\nAnd to be houseless of all other things,\nEven as the Lonely Man.\n[The PIPER starts]\n  Where is the child?\n\nPIPER\nNo; that I will not tell.  Only thus much:\nI love thy child.  Trust me,--I love them, all.\nThey are the brightest miracle I know.\nWherever I go, I search the eyes of men\nTo find such clearness;--and it is not there.\nLies, greed and cruelty, and dreadful dark!\nAnd all that makes Him sad these thousand years,\nAnd keeps His forehead bleeding.--Ah, you know!\n\nVERONIKA\nWhom do you think on?\n\nPIPER\nWhy, the Lonely Man,--\nBut now I have the children safe with me;\nAnd men shall never teach them what men know;--\nThose radiant things that have no wish at all\nSave for what is all-beautiful!--the Rainbow,\nThe running Water, and the Moon, the Moon!\nThe only things worth having!\n\nVERONIKA\n  --Oh, you will not\nGive him to me?\n\nPIPER\n  How give you yours again,\nAnd not the others?  What a life for him!\n[She hides her face]\nAnd Kurt the Syndic, left without his sons?\nBah, do not dream of it!  What would Kurt do?--\nAnd hearken here!  Should any hunt me down,\nTake care.  Who then could bring the children back?\n\nVERONIKA\n_Jan_!  _Jan_!\n\nPIPER\nHe loves me.  He is happy.\n\nVERONIKA\n[passionately ]\n  _No_!\nWithout me?--No.\n\nPIPER\n  He has not even once\nCalled you.\n\nVERONIKA\n[staggering]\nAh, ah! how cruel!  'Tis the spell,\nThe spell.\n\nPIPER\n[touching his heart]\n--You hurt me, here.  What makes it, Woman?--\nWould you not have him happy?\n\nVERONIKA\n  O my God!\n\nPIPER\n[offering her water]\nDrink here.  Take heart.  O Woman, they must stay!\n'T is better so.  No, no, I mock thee not.\nThou foldest all about me like the Dark\nThat holds the stars.  I would I were thy child.|\n\nVERONIKA\nBut I will find him.  I will find him--\n\nPIPER\n  No,\nIt must not be!  Their life is bound with mine.\nIf I be harmed, they perish.  Keep that word,\nGo, go!\n\nVERONIKA\n[passionately]\n  My longing will bring back my Own.\n\nPIPER\nAh, long not so.\n\nVERONIKA\n  Yes, it will bring him back!\nHe breathes.  And I will wish him home to me,\nTill my heart break!\n\nPIPER\nHearts never break in Hamelin.\nGo, then; and teach those other ones to long;\nWake up those dead!\n\nVERONIKA\n  Peace.  I shall draw him home.\n\nPIPER\nNot till he cries for thee.\n\nVERONIKA\n  Oh, that will be\nSoon,--soon.\n\nPIPER\n[gently]\n  Remember,--if one word of thine\nSet on the hounds to track me down and slay me,\nThey will be lost forever; they would die,--\nThey, who are in my keeping.\n\nVERONIKA\n  Yea, I hear.\nBut he will come . . . oh, he will come to me,\nSoon,--soon.\n\n[She goes, haltingly, and disappears along the road to Hamelin.--The\nPIPER, alone, stands spell-bound, breathing hard, and looking after\nher.  Then he turns his head and comes down, doggedly.  Again he\npauses.  With a sudden sharp effort he turns, and crosses with\npassionate appeal to the shrine, his arm uplifted towards the carven\nChrist as if he warded off some accusation.  His speech comes in a\ntorrent.\n\nPIPER\nI will not, no, I will not, Lonely Man!\nI have them in my hand.  I have them all--\nAll--all!  And I have lived unto this day.\nYou understand . . .\n[He waits as if for some reply]\nYou know what men they are.\nAnd what have they to do with such as these?\nThink of those old as death, in body and heart,\nHugging their wretched hoardings, in cold fear\nOf moth and rust!--While these miraculous ones,\nLike golden creatures made of sunset-cloud,\nGo out forever,--every day, fade by\nWith music and wild stars!--Ah, but You know.\nThe hermit told me once. You loved them, too.\nBut I know more than he, how You must love them:\nTheir laughter, and their bubbling, skylark words\nTo cool Your heart.  Oh, listen, Lonely Man!--\n\n     *     *     *     *     *\n\nOh, let me keep them!  I will bring them to You,\nStill nights, and breathless mornings; they shall touch\nYour hands and feet with all their swarming hands,\nLike showering petals warm on furrowed ground,--\nAll sweetness!  They will make Thee whole again,\nWith love.  Thou wilt lookup and smile on us!\n\n     *     *     *     *     *\n\nWhy not?  I know--the half--You will be saying.\nYou will be thinking of Your Mother.--Ah,\nBut she was different.  She was not as they.\nShe was more like . . . this one, the wife of Kurt!\n_Of Kurt_!  No, no; ask me not this, not this!\nHere is some dawn of day for Hamelin,--now!\n-Tis hearts of men You want.  Not mumbled prayers;\nNot greed and carven tombs, not misers' candles;\nNo offerings, more, from men that feed on men;\nEternal psalms and endless cruelties! . . .\nEven from now, there may be hearts in Hamelin,\nOnce stabbed awake!\n[He pleads, defends, excuses passionately; before his will gives\nway, as the arrow flies from the bow-string.]\n  --_I will not give them back_!\nAnd Jan,--for Jan, that little one, that dearest\nTo Thee and me, hark,--he is wonderful.\nAsk it not of me.  Thou dost know I cannot!\n\n     *     *     *     *     *\n\nLook, Lonely Man!  You shall have all of us\nTo wander the world over, where You stand\nAt all the crossways, and on lonely hills,--\nOutside the churches, where the lost ones\nAnd the wayfaring men, and thieves and wolves\nAnd lonely creatures, and the ones that sing!\nWe will show all men what we hear and see;\nAnd we will make Thee lift Thy head, and smile.\n\n     *     *     *     *     *\n\nNo, no, I cannot give them all!  No, no.--\nWhy wilt Thou ask it?--Let me keep but one.\nNo, no, I will not. . . . . . . . . . . .\n. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\n. . . . . . . . . . _Have Thy way.--I will_!\n\n\nCurtain\n\n\n\n\nACT IV\n\nSCENE: Hamelin market-place.\n\nIt is early morning; so dark that only a bleak twilight glimmers\nin the square; the little streets are dim. Everywhere gloom and\nstillness.  In the house of KURT, beside the Minster, there is one\nwindow-light behind a curtain in the second story.  At the casements,\ndown right and left, sit OLD CLAUS and OLD URSULA, wan and motionless\nas the dead.\n\nThe church-bell, which likewise seems to have aged, croaks softly,\ntwice.  PETER the Sacristan stands by the bell-rope.\n\nOLD URSULA\nNo, no.  They'll never come.  I told ye so.\nThey all are gone.  There will be nothing young\nTo follow us to the grave.\n\nOLD CLAUS\n  No, no,--not one!\n\n[The Minster-door opens, and out come certain of the townsfolk\nfrom early mass.  They look unnaturally old and colorless.  Their\nsteps lag drearily.--HANS the Butcher and his wife; AXEL the Smith\nwith his wife, and PETER the Cobbler, meet, on their way to the\nlittle street, left, and greet one another with painstaking,\nstricken kindness.  They speak in broken voices.\n\nHANS the Butcher\nWell, well--\n\nAXEL the Smith\nGod knows!\n[The bell sounds]\n\nHANS the Butcher\nNeighbor, how fare your knees?\n[AXEL smooths his right leg and gives a jerk of pain.  They all\nmove stiffly.\n\nAXEL the Smith\nI'm a changed man.\n\nHANS the Butcher\n  Peter the Sacristan,\nGive by the bell!  It tolls like--Oh, well, well!\n\nAXEL the Smith\nIt does no good, it does no good at all.\n\nPETER the Cobbler\nRather, I do believe it mads the demons;\nAnd I have given much thought--\n\nAXEL the Smith\n  Over thy shoes!\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n[modestly]\nTo demons.\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\n  Let him chirp philosophy!\nHe had no children.\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n[wagging his head solemnly]\n  I'm an altered man.\nNow were we not proceeding soberly,\nSinging a godly hymn, and all in tune,\nBut yesterday, when we passed by--\n\nHANS' WIFE\n  Don't say it!\nDon't name the curseful place.\n\nHANS the Butcher\n  --And my poor head,\nIt goes round yet;--around, around, around,\nAs I were new ashore from the high seas;\nStill dancing--dancing--\n\nAXEL the Smith\n  With 'Yes--yes!--Yes--yes!'\n\nHANS the Butcher\nEven as ye heard, the farmer's yokel found me\nClasping a tree, and praying to stand still!\n\nAXEL the Smith\nAy, ay,--but that is nought.\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n  All nought beside.\n\nHANS' WIFE\nBetter we had the rats and mice again,\nThough they did eat us homeless,--if we might\nAll starve together!--Oh, my Hans, my Hans!\n\nPETER the Cobbler\nHope not, good souls.  Rest sure, they will not come.\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\nWho will say that?\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n[discreetly]\nNot I; but the Inscription,\n[He points to the Rathaus wall.]\n\nAXEL the Smith\nOf our own making?\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n  On the Rathaus wall!\nAt our own bidding it was made and graved:--\nHow,--on that day and down this very street,\nHe led them,--he, the Wonderfully-clothed,\nThe Strange Man, with his piping;\n[They cross themselves]\n  And they went,--\nAnd never came again.\n\nHANS' WIFE\n  But they may come!\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n[pityingly]\nMarble is final, woman;--nay, poor soul!\nWhen once a man be buried, and over him\nThe stone doth say _Hic Jacet_, or Here Lies,\nWhen did that man get up?--There is the stone.\nThey come no more, for piping or for prayer;\nUntil the trump of the Lord Gabriel.\nAnd if they came, 'tis not in Hamelin men\nTo alter any stone, so graven.--Marble\nIs final.  Marble has the last word, ever.\n[Groans from the burghers.]\n\nHANS the Butcher\nO little Ilse!--Oh! and Lump--poor Lump!\nMore than a dog could bear!--More than a dog--\n\n[They all break down.  The Shoemaker consoles them.\n\nPETER the Cobbler\nBear up, sweet neighbors.--We are all but dust.\nNo mice, no children.--Hem!  And now Jacobus,--\nHis child, not even safe with Holy Church,\nBut lost and God knows where!\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\nBewitched,--bewitched!\n[Hans and his wife, arm in arm, turn left, towards their house,\npeering ahead.\n\nHANS' WIFE\nKind saints!  Me out and gone to early mass,\nAnd all this mortal church-time, there's a candle,\nA candle burning in the casement there;--\nThou wasteful man!\n\nHANS the Butcher\n[huskily]\nCome, come!  Do not be chiding.\nSuppose they came and could not see their way.\nSuppose--O wife!--I thought they'd love the light!\nI thought--\n\nPETER the Cobbler\nAy, now! And there's another light\nIn Kurt the Syndic's house.\n\n[They turn and look up.  Other burghers join the group. All walk\nlamely and look the picture of wretchedness.\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\n  His wife, poor thing,\nThe priest is with her.  Ay, for once, they say,\nKurt's bark is broken.\n\nOLD URSULA\n  There will be nothing young\nTo follow us to the grave.\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\n  They tell, she seems\nSore stricken since the day that she was lost,\nLost, searching on the mountain. Since that time,\nShe will be saying nought.  She stares and smiles.\n\nHANS' WIFE\nAnd reaches out her arms,--poor soul!\n\nALL\n  Poor soul!\n\n[Murmur in the distance.  They do not heed it.\n\nAXEL the Smith\n[To the Butcher]\nThat was no foolish thought of thine, yon candle.\nI do remember now as I look back,\nThey always loved the lights.  My Rudi there\nWould aye be meddling with my tinder-box.\nAnd once I--Oh!--\n[Choking]\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\n[soothingly]\nNow, now! thou didst not hurt him!\n'T was I!  Oh, once--I shut him in the dark!\n\nAXEL the Smith\nCome home . . . and light the candles.\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n  In the day-time!\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\nOh, it is dark enough!\n\nAXEL the Smith\nLord knows, who made\nBoth night and day, one of 'em needs to shine!\nBut nothing does!--Nothing is daylight now.\nCome, wife, we'll light the candles.\n\n[Exit with his wife.\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n  He's a changed man.\n\nPETER the Sacristan\nGod help us, what's to do?\n[Tumult approaching.  Shouts of 'Jacobus' and 'Barbara.'\n  Hark!\n\nHANS' WIFE\n  Neighbors!\n\nHANS the Butcher\nHark!  Hark!\n\n[AXEL and his wife reenter hastily; AXEL rushes toward the noise.\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\nOh, I hear something!  Can it be--\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n  They're shouting.\n\nHANS the Butcher\nMy Iambs,--my lambs!\n\n[AXEL reenters, crestfallen]\n\nAXEL the Smith\n'Tis naught--but Barbara\n_His--his_!\n\n[Shaking his fist at the house of Jacobus.\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n[calling]\nJacobus!\n\n[The others are stricken with disappointment.\n\nHANS the Butcher\nWife,--'t is none of ours.\n\nAXEL the Smith\nLet him snore on!--The only man would rather\nSleep late than meet his only child again!\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n[deprecatingly]\nNo man may parley with the gifts of Fortune!\n[Knocking on the door]\nJacobus!\n\n[Enter, at the rear, with a straggling crowd, BARBARA and MICHAEL,\nboth radiant and resolute.  She wears the long green cloak over\nher bridal array.\n\nJACOBUS appears in his doorway, night-capped and fur-gowned,\nshrinking from the hostile crowd.  The people murmur.\n\nCROWD\n  (    Barbara!--She that was bewitched!\n  (  And who's the man?  Is it the Piper?  No!\n  (  No, no--some stranger.  Barbara!  Barbara's home;--\n  (  He never gave her up!--Who is the man?\n\nJACOBUS\nMy daughter!  'Tis my daughter,--found--restored!\nOh, heaven is with us!\n\nALL\n[sullenly]\n  Ah!\n\nJACOBUS\n  Child, where have you been?\n\nALL\nAy, where, Jacobus?\n[He is dismayed.]\n\nJACOBUS\n  Who is this man?--Come hither.\n\nBARBARA\n[without approaching him, lifting her face clearly]\nGood-morning to you, father!  We are wed.\nMichael,--shall I go hither?\n[The townsfolk are amazed.]\n\nJACOBUS\n  She is mad!\nShe is quite mad,--my treasure.\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n  Let her speak.\nMaids sometimes marry, even in Hamelin.\n\nALL\n  (  Ay, tell us!\n  (  Who is he?  Barbara?\n  (  Art thou mad?--How came ye hither?\n\nJACOBUS\nWho is he?\n\nBARBARA\n  Michael.\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n  'Tis the Sword-Eater!\nA friend o' the Piper's!--Hearken--\n\nALL\n  She's bewitched!\n\nHANS' WIFE\nThis is the girl was vowed to Holy Church,\nFor us and for our children that are lost!\n\nBARBARA\nAy, and did any have a mind to me,\nWhen I was lost?  Left dancing, and distraught?\n\nALL\nWe could not.  We were spell-bound.  Nay, we could not.\n\nJACOBUS\n[sagely, after the others]\nWe could not.\n\nBARBARA\nSo!--But there was one who could.\nThere was one man.  And this is he.\n[turning to Michael]\n  And I,\nI am no more your Barbara,--I am his.\nAnd I will go with him, over the world.\nI come to say farewell.\n\nJACOBUS\nHe hath bewitched her!\n\nMICHAEL\nWhy did we ever come?  Poor darling one,\nThy too-much duty hath us in a trap!\n\nAXEL the Smith\nNo, no!--Fair play!\n\nOTHERS\n  Don't let them go!  We have them.\n\nPETER the Cobbler\nHold what ye have.  Be 't children, rats or mice!\n\n[Hubbub without, and shouts.  Some of the burghers hasten out after\nthis fresh excitement.  JACOBUS is cowed.  BARBARA and MICHAEL are\nstartled.  The shouts turn savage.  The uproar grows.  Shouts of\n'Ay, there be is!  We have him!  We have him!  Help--help!  Hold\nfast!  Ah!  Piper!  Piper!  Piper!'\n\nHow now?  What all!--\n\n[The crowd parts to admit the PIPER, haled hither with shouts and\npelting, by MARTIN the Watch and other men, all breathless.  His\neyes burn.\n\nMICHAEL\n[apart]\n  Save us!--They have him.\n\nMARTIN\n[gaspingly]\n  Help!\nMark ye--I caught him!--Help,--and hold him fast!\n\nPIPER\nI came here,--frog!\n\nMARTIN\n  Ay, he were coming on;\nAnd after him a squirrel, hopping close!\n\nSECOND MAN\nAs no man ever saw a squirrel hop--\nNear any man from Hamelin!  And I looked--\n\nMARTIN\nAnd it was he; and all we rush upon him--\nAnd take him!\n\nPIPER\nLoose thy claws, I tell thee I--\n\nALL\n  (  'Ware!\n  (  Mercy!\n  (  Let him go!\n\nVOICE FROM CROWD\nI have the squirrel!\n\nPIPER\n[savagely]\nLet the squirrel go!\nOr you shall rue it.--Loose him!  He's not mine.\n\n[He sees BARBARA and MICHAEL for the first time and recoils with\namazement.  BARBARA steps towards him.\n\nBARBARA\nOh, let him go,--let be.  His heart is clear,\nAs water from the well!\n[The PIPER gazes at her, open-mouthed.]\n\nALL\n  (  She talks in her sleep!\n  (  The maid's bewitched!\n  (  Now, will ye hear?\n\nAXEL'S WIFE\nHe piped and made thee dance!\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n  'T was he bewitched us!\n\nBARBARA\n[serenely]\nWhatever was,--it was for love of me.\n\nPIPER\n[thunderstruck]\nSo!\n\nBARBARA\nHe piped;--and all ye danced and fled away!\nHe piped;--and brought me back my wandering wits,\nAnd gave me safe unto my Love again,--\nMy Love I had forgotten. . . .\n\nPIPER\nSo!\n\nMICHAEL\n[with conviction]\nTruly said.\n\nBARBARA\n[proudly]\n  Michael.\n\nJACOBUS\nWho is he, pray?\n\nBARBARA\nMy own true love.\n\nPETER the Cobbler\n  Now, is that all his name?\n\nBARBARA\nIt is enough.\n\nJACOBUS\n  --She's mad.  Shall these things be?\n\nALL\n  (  The Children!  The Children!\n  (  Where are the Children?\n  (  Piper!  Pi-per!  Piper!\n\nPIPER\n[sternly]\n  Quiet you.  And hear me.\nI came to bring good tidings.  In good faith,\nOf mine own will, I came.--And like a thief\nYou haled me hither.--\n[They hang upon his words]\n  . . . Your children--live.\n\nALL\n  (  Thank God!  I knew, I knew!\n  (  We could not think them lost.\n  (  Bewitched!  Oh, but they live!--\n  (  Piper!--O Piper!\n\nPETER the Cobbler\nThey're spell-bound,--mark me!\n\nPIPER\n  Ay, they are,--spell-bound:\nFast bound by all the hardness of your hearts;\n_Caged,--in the iron of your money-lust_--\n\nALL\n  (  No, no, not all!  Not I!  Not mine, not mine!\n  (  No, no,--it is not true.\n\nPIPER\nYour blasphemies,--your cunning and your Fear.\n\nALL\n  (  No, no!--What can we do?\n  (  News, Piper, news!\n  (  Where are your ridings, Piper?\n\nPIPER\nNow hear me.  You did make Jacobus swear\nTo give his child.--What recks it, how he lose her?--\nEither to Holy Church--_against her will_!--\nOr to this man,--so that he give her up!\nHe swore to you.  And she hath pledged her faith.\nShe is fast wed.--Jacobus shall not have her.\nHe breaks all bargains; and for such as he,\nYou suffer.--Will you bear it?\n\nALL\n  No, no, no!\n\nPIPER\nThen she who was \"Proud Barbara\" doth wed\nMichael-the-Sword-Eater.--The pledge shall stand.\nShall it?\n\nALL\n  (  It stands.\n  (  Ay, ay!\n\nPIPER\nYour word!\n\nALL\n  (  We swear.  We answer for him.\n  (  So much for Jacobus!\n\nAXEL the Smith\nAn' if yon fellow like an honest trade,\nI'll take him!--I'll make swords!\n[Cheers.  Michael is happy.]\n\nALL\nQuick, quick!--Our children.--Piper!--Tell us all!\n\nPIPER\n'T is well begun.--Now have I come to say:\nThere is one child I may bring back to you,--\nThe first.\n\nALL\n[in an uproar]\n  (  Mine--mine!  Let it be mine!\n  (  Ours'--All of them!  Now!\n  (  _Mine--mine--mine!--mine_!\n\nPIPER\n[unmoved]\n  --Oh, Hamelin to the end!\nWhich of you longed the most, and dared the most?\nWhich of you--\n\n[He searches the crowd anxiously with his eyes.]\n\nALL\n  (  I!  I!  I!\n  (  We searched the hills!\n  (  We prayed four days!\n  (  We fasted twenty hours--\n  (  Mine!  Mine!\n  (  Mine--mine--mine--mine!\n\nPIPER\n  Not yet.--They all do live\nUnder a spell,--deep in a hollow hill.\nThey sleep, and wake; and lead a charmed life.\nBut first of all,--one child shall come again.\n[He scans the crowd still]\nWhere is the wife--of Kurt, the Councillor?\n\nALL\n[savagely]\n_No, mine, mine, mine_!\n\nMARTIN'S WIFE\nWhat, that lame boy of hers?\n\nPIPER\nWhere is the wife of Kurt?\n\nPETER the Cobbler AND OTHERS\n  --Veronika?\nThe foreign woman?  She is lying ill:\nSore-stricken yonder--\n[Pointing to the house.]\n\nPIPER\n[gladly]\n  Bid her come, look out!\n\n[The crowd moves confusedly towards KURT'S house.  The PIPER too\napproaches, calling]\n\nHo,--ho, within there!\n\n[ANSELM, the priest, appears in the doorway with uplifted hand,\ncommanding silence.  He is pale and stern.  At sight of his face\nthe PIPER, falters.\n\nANSELM\n  Silence here!--Good people\nWhat means this?\n\nPIPER\n  I have tidings for--the wife\nOf Kurt--the Councillor.\n\nANSELM\nYou are too late.\n\nPIPER\nBid her--look out!\n\nANSELM\n[solemnly]\nHer soul is passing, now.\n\n[The PIPER falls back stricken and speechless.--The crowd, seeing\nhim humanly overwhelmed, grows brave.\n\nMARTIN'S WIFE\n'Tis he has done it!\n\nHANS the Butcher\n  --Nay, it is God's will.\nPoor soul!\n\nPETER the Sacristan\n[fearfully]\nDon't anger him!  'T was Kurt the Syndic\nWith his bad bargain.\n\nAXEL the Smith\n  Do not cross the Piper!\n\nMARTIN\nNay, but he's spent.  He's nought to fear.--\nLook there.\nMark how he breathes!  Upon him!  Help, help, ho!--\nThou piping knave!\n\nOTHERS\nTie--chain him!--Kill him!--Kill him!\n[They surround him.  He thrusts them off.]\n\nPETER the Cobbler and OTHERS\n  (  Bind him, but do not kill him!--Oh, beware!\n  (  What is he saying?--Peace.\n\nPIPER\n[brokenly]\n  The wife of Kurt!\nOff! what can you do?--Oh!  I came, I came\nHere, full of peace, and with a heart of love;--\nTo give--but now that one live Soul of all\nIs gone!--No, no!\n  --_I say she shall not die_!\n_She shall not_!\n\nANSELM\n  Hush!--She is in the hands of God.\nShe is at peace.\n\nPIPER\n  No, never!  Let me by!\n[ANSELM bars the threshold and steps out.]\n\nANSELM\nThou froward fool!--Wouldst rend with tears again\nThat shriven breath?  And drag her back to sorrow?\nIt is the will of God.\n\nPIPER\n  --And I say No!\n\nANSELM\nWho dare dispute--\n\nPIPER\n  I dare!\n\nANSELM\n  With death?--With God?\n\nPIPER\nI know His will, for once!  She shall not die.\nShe must come back, and live!--_Veronika_!\n\n[He calls up to the lighted window.  The people stand aghast:\nANSELM bars the threshold.\n\nI come, I come!  I bring your Own to you!\nListen, Veronika!\n\n[He feels for his pipe.  It is gone.--His\nface shows dismay, for a moment]\n\nWhere?--Where?\n\nPEOPLE\n  (  He's lost the pipe.--He's hiding it!\n  (  He cannot pipe them back!  'tis gone--'tis gone.--\n  (  No, 'tis to save his life.--It is for time.\n\nPIPER\n[to himself]\n--'T is but a voice.  What matter?--\n\nCROWD\n  (  Seize him--\n  (  Bind him!\n\nPIPER\n[to them]\nHush!\n[Passionately he stretches his arms towards the window.\n\nANSELM\nPeace, for this parting Soul!\n\nPIPER\n[with fixed eyes]\n  _It shall not go_.\n[To the Window]\nVeronika!--Ah, listen!--wife of Kurt.\n_He comes . . . he comes!  Open thine eyes a moment_!\n_Blow the faint fire within thy heart.  He comes_!\nThy longing brings him;--ay, _and mine,--and mine_!\nHeed not these grave-makers, Veronika.\nLive, live, and laugh once more!--_Oh! do you hear_?\nLook, how you have to waken all these dead,\nThat walk about you!--Open their dim eyes;\nSing to them with your heart, Veronika,\nAs I am piping, far away, outside!\nWaken them,--change them!  Show them how to long,\nTo reach their arms as you do, for the stars,\nAnd fold them in.  Stay but one moment;--stay,\nAnd thine own Child shall draw thee back again\nDown here, to mother him,--mother us all!\n_Oh, do you listen?--Do not try to answer_,--\nI hear!--I hear. . . .\n\n[A faint sound of piping comes from the distance.--The PIPER is\nfirst watchful, then radiant.--The burghers are awe-struck, as it\nsounds nearer.\n\nBARBARA\nListen!\n\nMICHAEL\n  His very tune,\n\n[The PIPER faces front with fixed, triumphant eyes above the crowd.\n\nMARTIN'S WIFE\n  O Lord, have mercy!\nThe Pipe is coming to him, through the air!\n\nALL\n'T is coming to the Piper ;--we are lost.--\nThe Pipe is coming, coming through the air!\n\n[The PIPER, with a sudden gesture, commands silence.  He bounds away\n(centre), and disappears.  The people, spell-bound with terror,\nmurmur and fray.\n\nANSELM\n_Retro me, Sathanas_!\n\n[KURT the Syndic appears on the threshold behind ANSELM, whose arm\nhe touches, whispering.--Their faces are wonder-struck with hope\nand awe.\n\nHANS the Butcher\n[to the others, pointing]\n'T is Kurt the Syndic.\n\nAXEL the Smith\nThen she lives!--\n\nHANS' WIFE\n  Look there!\n\nOTHERS\nLook, look!  The casement! . . .\n\n[The casement of the lighted window opens wide and slowly.--Reenter\nthe PIPER with JAN in his arms.  The little boy holds the Pipe, and\nsmiles about with tranquil happiness.  The PIPER, radiant with joy,\nlifts him high, looking toward VERONIKA'S window.--The awe-struck\npeople point to the open casement.\n\nVERONIKA'S two white bands reach out; then she herself appears, pale,\nshining with ecstasy.\n\nJAN\n_'Tis Mother_!\n\n[The PIPER lifts him still before the window, gazing up.  Then he\nsprings upon the bench (outside the lower window) and gives JAN into\nthe arms of VERONIKA.--KURT and ANSELM how their heads.  A hush.\n--Then JAN looks down from the window-seat.\n\nPIPER\n[to him, smiling wisely]\nAnd all the others?\n\nJAN\nThey were all asleep.\n\nPIPER\nI'll waken them!\n[He takes his pipe.--An uproar of joy among the burghers.]\n\nAXEL the Smith, HANS the Butcher, ALL\n  (  Bring lights,--bring lights!\n  (  Oh, Piper--Oh, my lambs!\n  (  The children!--The children!\n\n[Some rush out madly; others go into their houses for lights; some\nare left on their knees, weeping for joy.\n\nThe PIPER sounds a few notes; then lifts his hand and listens,\nsmiling.--Uproar in the distance.--A great harking of dogs;--shouts\nand cheers; then the high, sweet voices of the Children.\n\nThe piping is drowned in cries of joy.  The sun comes out, still\nrosy, in a flood of light.  The crowd rushes in.  Fat burghers hug\neach other, and laugh and cry.  They are all younger, their faces\nbloom, as by a miracle.\n\nThe Children pour in.  Some are carried, some run hand-in-hand.\nEverywhere women embrace their own.  KURT has his sons.--CHEAT-THE-DEVIL\ncomes, with a daisy-chain around his neck, all smiles.\n\nAn uproar of light and faces.\n\nHANS the Butcher\nThe treasure for the Piper!\n\nALL\n  Ay, ay, Piper!\n\nHANS the Butcher\nThe thousand guilders!\n\nPIPER\n  Give them Michael there,\nFor all us three.  I hate to carry things;--\nSaving out one!\n[He waves his hand to JAN in the window.--VERONIKA appears behind\nhim, shining with new life.  JAN leans out and points to the ground.\n_Heja_! What now?--\n[Picking up one of JAN'S winged shoes.]\n\nHANS' WIFE\n  Look! Look!--\nAnd wings upon it!  Mercy, what a shoe.--\nDon't give it back.--The child will fly away!\n\nPIPER\nNo, no!\n[Looking up at the window soothingly.]\nHe only wanted one to show--\n\nJAN\nTo Mother!--See.\n[Showing her his other foot, joyously]\n\nPIPER\n[to him]\n  And this,--wilt leave it here?\nHere--with--\n\nJAN\nThe Lonely Man!  Oh, make Him smile!\n\n[The PIPER crosses to the Shrine, with the little shoe, and hangs\nit up there; then he turns towards the window, waving his hand.\n\nCHILDREN\nWhere are you going? . . .\n[They run and cling.]\n\nPIPER\nAh, the high-road now!\n\nCHILDREN\nOh! why?\n\nPIPER\n  I have to find somebody there.\nYes, now and every day, and everywhere\nThe wide world over.--So: good-night, good-morning,\nGood-by!  There's so much piping left to do,--\nI must be off, and pipe.\n\nCHILDREN\n  Oh! why?\n\nPIPER\n  I promised,\nLook you! . . .\n\nCHILDREN\nWho is it?\n\nPIPER\nWhy,--the Lonely Man.\n\n[He waves them farewells and goes.  The Children dance and laugh\nand sparkle.  Through the hundred sounds of joy, there comes a\nfar-off piping.\n\n\nTHE END","title":"The Piper: A Play in Four Acts","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":17610}