III.

Whew! We'll have our platter burnished,
Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we're furnish'd,
And a goblet for ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial
Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps-
Marked with L. for our initial!
(He, he! There his lily snaps !)

IV.

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores
Squats outside the Convent bank,
With Sanchicha, telling stories,

Steeping tresses in the tank,

Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
-Can't I see his dead eye glow
Bright, as 'twere a Barbary corsair's?
(That is, if he'd let it show!)

V.

When he finishes refection,

Knife and fork he never lays
Cross-wise, to my recollection,
As do I, in Jesu's praise.
I, the Trinity illustrate,

Drinking watered orange-pulp—
In three sips the Arian frustrate;
While he drains his at one gulp!

VI.

Oh, those melons! If he's able

We're to have a feast; so nice! One goes to the Abbot's table, All of us get each a slice.

How go on your flowers? None double?
Not one fruit-sort can you spy?

Strange !—And I, too, at such trouble,
Keep 'em close-nipped on the sly!

VII.

There's a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails.

If I trip him just a-dying,

Sure of heaven as sure can be,

Spin him round and send him flying
Off to hell, a Manichee?

VIII.

Or, my scrofulous French novel,
On grey paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel

Hand and foot in Belial's gripe:
If I double down its pages

At the woeful sixteenth print, When he gathers his greengages, Ope a sieve and slip it in't?

IX.

Or, there's Satan !—one might venture
Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave
Such a flaw in the indenture

As he'd miss till, past retrieve,
Blasted lay that rose-acacia

We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine
'St, there's vespers! Plena gratia
Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r-you swine!

THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN.

A CHILD'S STORY.

(WRITTEN FOR, AND INSCRIBED TO, W. M. THE YOUNGER.)

I.

Hamelin town's in Brunswick,

By famous Hanover city;

The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,

Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so

From vermin, was a pity.

They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,

And bit the babies in the cradles,

And ate the cheeses out of the vats,

And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,

Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats,
By drowning their speaking

With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.

III.

At last the people in a body

To the Town Hall came flocking: "'Tis clear," cried they, "our Mayor's a noddy; And as for our Corporation-shocking

To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can't or won't determine

What's best to rid us of our vermin !

You hope, because you're old and obese,
To find in the furry civic robe ease?
Rouse up, sirs! Give your brains a racking
To find the remedy we're lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!"
At this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.

IV.

An hour they sate in council,

At length the Mayor broke silence :
"For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell ;
I wish I were a mile hence !

It's easy to bid one rack one's brain-
I'm sure my poor head aches again
I've scratched it so, and all in vain.
Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!"
Just as he said this, what should hap

C

At the chamber door but a gentle tap?
"Bless us," cried the Mayor, "what's that?"
(With the Corporation as he sat,

Looking little though wondrous fat;

Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister
Than a too-long-opened oyster,

Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous
For a plate of turtle green and glutinous)
"Only a scraping of shoes on the mat?
Anything like the sound of a rat

Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!"

V.

"Come in !"—the Mayor cried, looking bigger :

And in did come the strangest figure!

His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red ;
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,
And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin,
No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin,
But lips where smiles went out and in—
There was no guessing his kith and kin!
And nobody could enough admire
The tall man and his quaint attire.
Quoth one: "It's as my great-grandsire,

Starting up at the trump of doom's tone,

Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!"

VI.

He advanced to the council-table:

And, "Please your honours," said he, "I'm able, By means of a secret charm, to draw