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 forever,
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 who ascribe

The outlandish ways and dress

On which their neighbors 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.

ABRIDGED FROM ROBERT BROWNING.

'TWAS a jolly old pedagogue, long ago,

Tall and slender, and sallow and dry; His form was bent, and his gait was slow, His long, thin hair was as white as snow,

But a wonderful twinkle shone in his eye; And he sang every night as he went to bed; "Let us be happy down here below:

The living should live, though the dead be dead,"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He taught his scholars the rule of three,
Writing, and reading, and history, too;
He took the little ones up on his knee,
For a kind old heart in his breast had he,
And the wants of the littlest child he knew:
"Learn while you're young," he often said,

"There is much to enjoy, down here below; Life for the living, and rest for the dead!" Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

With the stupidest boys he was kind and cool,

Speaking only in gentlest tones;

The rod was hardly known in his school
Whipping, to him, was a barbarous rule,

And too hard work for his poor old bones;
Beside, it was painful, he sometimes said:

"We should make life pleasant, down here below, The living need charity more than the dead," Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He lived in the house by the hawthorn lane,
With roses and woodbine over the door;
His rooms were quiet, and neat, and plain,
But a spirit of comfort there held reign,

And made him forget he was old and poor; "I need so little," he often said;

"And my friends and relatives here below Won't litigate over me when I am dead,"

Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

But the pleasantest times that he had, of all,
Were the sociable hours he used to pass,
With his chair tipped back to a neighbor's wall,
Making an unceremonious call,

Over a pipe and a friendly glass:

This was the finest pleasure, he said,

Of the many he tasted, here below;
"Who has no cronies, had better be dead!"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

Then the jolly old pedagogue's wrinkled face
Melted all over in sunshiny smiles;

He stirred his glass with an old-school grace,
Chuckled, and sipped, and prattled apace,

Till the house grew merry, from cellar to tiles; "I'm a pretty old man," he gently said,

"I have lingered a long while, here below; But my heart is fresh, if my youth is fled!" Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He smoked his pipe in the balmy air,

Every night when the sun went down,
While the soft wind played in his silvery hair,
Leaving its tenderest kisses there,

On the jolly old pedagogue's jolly old crown: And, feeling the kisses, he smiled, and said,

'Twas a glorious world, down here below; Why wait for happiness till we are dead?"

Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.