PIPER
Prodigies!
A thousand swallows, and no summer yet!
But now,—'t is late to ask,—why did you not
Swallow her father?—That had saved us all.
MICHAEL
They will be coming soon. They will cut off
All her bright hair,—and wall her in forever.
PIPER
Never. They shall not.
MICHAEL [dully] Will you give them back, Now?
PIPER
I will never give them back. Be sure.
MICHAEL
And she is made an offering for the town!
I heard it of the gossips.—They have sworn
Jacobus shall not keep his one ewe-lamb
While all the rest go childless.
PIPER
And I swear
That he shall give her up,—to none but thee!
MICHAEL
You cannot do it!
PIPER
Have I lived like Cain,
But to make good one hour of Life and Sun?
And have I got this Hamelin in my hands,
To make it pay its thousand cruelties
With such a fool's one-more? . . .
—You know right well,
'T was not the thousand guilders that I wanted
For thee, or me, or any!—Ten would serve.
But there it ached; there, in the money-bag
That serves the town of Hamelin for an heart!
That stab was mortal! And I thrust it deep.
Life, life, I wanted; safety,—sun and wind!—
And but to show them how that daily fear
They call their faith, is made of blasphemies
That would put out the Sun and Moon and Stars,
Early, for some last Judgment!
[He laughs, up to the tree-tops]
And the Lord,
Where will He get His harpers and singing-men
And them that laugh for joy?—From Hamelin guilds?—
Will you imagine Kurt the Councillor
Trying to sing?
[He looks at his pipe again; then listens intently.
MICHAEL
His lean throat freeze!—But she—
Barbara! Barbara!—