THE STRANGE HARPER

A NEW VERSION

66

IN days of fairy lore and magic wonder
There was a city but by legend known,
Where rats in armies made incessant plunder

Of everything which was not steel or stone.
The pantry-tubs, the corn-bins in the stable,

Were gnawed to shreds to get at meal and oats—
They clomb the stairs and spouts up to the gable,
And all the attic stores went down their throats.

Cupboards and safes were eaten through like butter,
To get at aught which thrift had put away,
And nothing but an iron door or shutter

Could keep a venison-pasty half a day.

There came a youth, his eyes with strange fire gleaming,
Who seemed a farer from a distant land;

His clothes of homely stuff and antique seeming;
A golden harp he carried in his hand.

When with his voice his harp-strings made sweet ringing,
A brighter glory o'er the wide earth flew-
The simplest flow'r he spoke of in his singing
Bloomed ever after with diviner hue.

O, list to me," he cried; "my song has glamour
To drown the vermin passions of the soul;
Of fiendish cries true song can stay the clamour,
And angels reign, where devils held control.

"The pest obscene which now devours this city
I will make vanish with a simple lay.

I ask no lavish guerdon for my ditty;

VOL. V.

Small care has minstrel true for place or pay.

Y

"I only ask to live without dishonour,

To sing the best I can, a minstrel free; Let others claim the gold of civic honour,

My song itself is meed enough for me."

Burghers, and burgomaster in his ermine,

To council went: "Well, let him try," they cried. "Go, try," they bade him-" free us from this vermin; In honour ever then with us abide."

The minstrel seized his harp with eager gladness,

And harping, singing, passed throughout the town: Where'er he sang the rats were seized with madness, And ran in wild distraction through the town.

They came without in every street and alley,
Swarming as black as bees within the hive;
Then to the river in tumultuous sally

They rushed, and drowned-not one was left alive.

The burghers blessed themselves with self-laudationShook hands, rang bells-again to council went,

To set on foot some proper celebration,

And vote themselves a feast for this event.

They feasted, drank-the harper quite forgotten,
Until the town-clerk hiccupped o'er his wine,
And wondered where he was; one-half besotten

Said, "With the scullions let the fellow dine!"

"Twas strange, they said, indeed, how the thing ended; The rats, no doubt, had a contagious fit.

The harper's song helped nothing; some pretended
They knew the man to be not sane of wit.

"His songs," they said, "will only plague and bore us; An after-dinner song were well enough;

Such as the town-fool sings, while we keep chorus.
Come, town-fool, give us of your good old stuff."

The town-fool sang, the burghers roared with laughter,
Or wineful, at his maudlin and sublime,
Wept maudlinly, and swore that ever after

His songs should live as fresh as in their prime.

After the feast they took to trade and barter

And business throve: but when that boy they met, All looked askance, with visage ever tarter;

And wondered why the deuce he stayed there yet.

An idle loon, they said, that vagrant harper;
They cursed his beauty and his golden locks,
Until the beadle, growing daily sharper,

Threatened at last to lay him in the stocks.

Old cross-grained wives would daily scold and flout him,
And fling him casual crusts into the street;
The children only closely flocked about him,
And kept time to his song with tiny feet.

The winter came, and in a wind-swept attic
The harper sat, neglected and alone;
His lyre no more he struck with thrill ecstatic-
His fingers they were frozen to the bone.

So sat he in unheeded desolation,

Till spring should rouse again his fancies gay,
With sufferance still and barren resignation
Awaiting for the time to fare away.

The primrose rath beneath the beech was glowing,
The dawn was drinking up its sorrow sweet,
As he the harper felt his old fire flowing-

And went and wandered up and down the street.

He played a song so weirdly sweet, entrancing,
The bells of Fairyland seemed then to ring;
Of whisp'ring woods he sang and wavelets glancing—
The murmurs and the magic life of spring.

The children far and near at his first singing
Forgot to roll the hoop or throw the ball,
And from each street in merry crowds came springing,
Drawn on like linnets by the call-bird's call.

He led, they went, through gates and suburb places,

O'er hill, down dale, through woodland haunts, deep, deep

Into the heart of forests, where their traces

Faded as foam fades on the ocean's sleep.