was lame,
    And could not dance the whole of the way;
    And in after years, if you would blame
    His sadness, he was used to say,—­
    “It’s dull in our town since my playmates left! 
    I can’t forget that I’m bereft
    Of all the pleasant sights they see,
    Which the Piper also promised me. 
    For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
    Joining the town and just at hand,
    Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
    And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
    And everything was strange and new;
    The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
    And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
    And honey-bees had lost their stings,
    And horses were born with eagles’ wings;
    And just as I became assured
    My lame foot would be speedily cured,
    The music stopped and I stood still,
    And found myself outside the hill,
    Left alone against my will,
    To go now limping as before,
    And never hear of that country more!”

XIV.

    Alas, alas for Hamelin! 
      There came into many a burgher’s pate
      A text which says that Heaven’s gate
      Opes to the rich at as easy rate
    As the needle’s eye takes a camel in! 
    The Mayor sent East, West, North, and South,
    To offer the Piper, by word of mouth,
      Wherever it was men’s lot to find him,
    Silver and gold to his heart’s content,
    If he’d only return the way he went,
      And bring the children behind him. 
    But when they saw ’twas a lost endeavour,
    And Piper and dancers were gone for ever,
    They made a decree that lawyers never
      Should think their records dated duly
    If, after the day of the month and year,
    These words did not as well appear,
    “And so long after what happened here
      On the Twenty-second of July,
    Thirteen hundred and seventy-six:” 
    And the better in memory to fix
    The place of the children’s last retreat,
    They called it, the Pied Piper’s Street—­
    Where any one playing on pipe or tabor,
    Was sure for the future to lose his labour. 
    Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern
      To shock with mirth a street so solemn;
    But opposite the place of the cavern
      They wrote the story on a column,
    And on the great church-window painted
    The same, to make the world acquainted
    How their children were stolen away,
    And there it stands to this very day. 
    And I must not omit to say
    That in Transylvania there’s a tribe
    Of alien people that ascribe
    The outlandish ways and dress
    On which their neighbours lay such stress,
    To their fathers and mothers having risen
    Out of some subterraneous prison
    Into which they were trepanned
    Long time ago in a mighty band
    Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,
    But how or why, they don’t understand.