"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 endeavor,
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 labor.
Nor suffered they Hostelry or Tavern
To shock with mirth a street so solemn ;
But opposite the place of the cavern

They wrote the story on a column,

And on the Great Church Window painted
The same, to make the world acquainted
How their children were stolen away.;
And there it stands to this very day.

And I must not omit to say

That in Transylvania there's a tribe

Of alien people that ascribe

The outlandish ways and dress

On which their neighbors lay such stress,
To their fathers and mothers having risen

Out of some subterranean 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.

XV.

So, Willy, let you and me be wipers

Of scores out with all men—especially pipers;

And whether they pipe us free, from rats or from

mice,

If we've promised them aught, let us keep our

promise.

HOLY-CROSS DAY.

On which the Jews were forced to attend an annual Christian sermon in Rome.

[“Now was come about Holy-Cross Day, and now must my lord preach his first sermon to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in the merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous table here in Romsy should be, though but once yearly, cast to the famishing doge, under-trampled and bespitten-upon beneath the feet of the guests. And a moving sight in truth, this, of so many of ths besotted, blind, restive, and ready-to-perish Hebrews! noet paternally brought-nay, (for He saith, 'Compel them w come in,’) haled, as it were, by the head and hair, and agaitot their obstinate hearts, to partake of the heavenly grace. Wnst awakening, what striving with tears, what working of a yeahn conscience! Nor was my lord wanting to himself on so apt,a occasion; witness the abundance of conversions which did incontinently reward him : though not to my lord be altogether the glory."-Diary by the Bishop's Secretary, 1600.]

Though what the Jews really said, on thus being driven to church, was rather to this effect:

I.

Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak!

Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the week.