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las, alas for Hamelin!There came into many a burgher's pateA text which says that heaven's gateOpes to the rich at as easy rateAs the needle's eye takes a camel in! 260The 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, 265And 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 neverShould think their records dated duly 270If, after the day of the month and year,These words did not as well appear,"And so long after what happened hereOn the Twenty-second of July,Thirteen hundred and seventy-six"; 275And the better in memory to fixThe place of the children's last retreat,They called it the Pied Piper's Street--Where anyone playing on pipe or taborWas sure for the future to lose his labor. 280Nor suffered they hostelry or tavernTo shock with mirth a street so solemn;But opposite the place of the cavernThey wrote the story on a column,And on the great church-window painted 285The same, to make the world acquaintedHow their children were stolen away,And there it stands to this very day.And I must not omit to sayThat in Transylvania there's a tribe 290Of alien people who ascribeThe outlandish ways and dressOn which their neighbors lay such stress,To their fathers and mothers having risenOut of some subterraneous prison 295Into which they were trepannedLong time ago in a mighty bandOut of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,But how or why, they don't understand.
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