SCENE:

The same, later. BARBARA lies motionless, still sleeping. MICHAEL, sitting on the bank opposite, fingers the pipe with awe and wistfulness. He blows softly upon it; then looks at the girl hopefully. She does not stir.

Enter the PIPER, from the hills at back. He carries a pair of water-jars slung over his shoulders, and seems to be in high feather.

PIPER [singing] Out of your cage, Come out of your cage And take your soul on a pilgrimage! Pease in your shoes, an if you must! But out and away, before you’re dust: Scribe and Stay-at-home, Saint and Sage, Out of your cage, Out of your cage! [He feigns to be terror-struck at sight of the pipe in Michael’s hands] Ho, help! Good Michael, Michael, loose the charm! Michael, have mercy! I’m bewitched!

MICHAEL [giving him the pipe] Cock’s faith! Still mocking! Well ye know, it will not play Such games for me.

PIPER Be soothed, ’twas as I guessed, [Unslings the jars] All of them hungry, and the Rainbow going;

And Cheat-the-Devil pining in a corner. ’Twas well I went: they were for leaking out, And then, lopped ears for two!

MICHAEL Oh, that will come.

PIPER Never believe it! We have saved her, look you; We save them all! No prison walls again, For anything so young, in Hamelin there. Wake her, and see.

MICHAEL Ay, wake her. But for me, Her sleep is gentler.

PIPER [comfortingly] Nay, but wait. Good faith, Wait. We have broke the bars of iron now; Still there are golden! ’Tis her very self Is caged within herself. Once coax her out, Once set her own heart free!

MICHAEL Wake her, and see! [The PIPER crosses, humming.]

PIPER Mind your eyes, tune your tongue! Let it never be said, but sung, but sung, ‘Out of your cage, out of your cage!’ Maiden, maiden, [He wakes her gently. BARBARA sits up, plainly bewildered; then she sees the PIPER, and says happily:

BARBARA Oh! you have come to save me. They are gone. All this, for love of me!

PIPER [ruefully] No, no I No!

BARBARA You you are robbers? [Her hands go to the pearls about her neck.]

PIPER [indignant] No! Blood on the Moon! This is the maddest world I ever blinked at. Fear nothing, maiden. I will tell you all. Come, sit you down; and Michael shall keep watch From yonder hillock, lest that any pass. Fear nothing. None will pass: they are too sure The Devil hath this cross-ways! Sit you down.

[MICHAEL watches, with jealous wistfulness, from the road (left rear). BARBARA half fearfully sits up, on the bank by the well.

BARBARA Not love? And yet . . . you do not want my pearls? Then why

PIPER For why should all be love or money? Money! Oho, that mouldy thousand guilders You think of! But it was your Hamelin friends That loved the guilders, and not I.

BARBARA Then why Why did you steal me hence?

PIPER Why did yourself Long to be stolen?

BARBARA [shuddering] Ah! to be shut up. . . Forever, young alive!

PIPER Alive and singing; Young, young; and four thick walls and no more sun, No music, and no wandering, and no life! Think you, I would not steal ail things alive Out of such doom? How can I breathe and laugh While there are things in cages? You are free; And you shall never more go back again.

BARBARA And you, who are you then?

PIPER How do I know? Moths in the Moon! Ask me a thing in reason.

BARBARA And ’t was not . . . that you loved me.

PIPER Loved thee? No! Save but along with squirrels, and bright fish, And bubbling water.

BARBARA Then where shall I go?

PIPER Oh, little bird, is that your only song? Go? Everywhere! Here be no walls, no hedges, No tolls, no taxes, rats nor aldermen! Go, say you? Round the world, and round again! [Apart] Ah, she was Hamelin-born. [He watches her] But there’s a man, Sky-true, sword-strong, and brave to look upon; One that would thrust his hand in dragon’s mouth For your bright sake; one that would face the Devil, Would swallow fire

BARBARA You would?

PIPER [desperately] I? No, not I! Michael, yon goodman Michael.

BARBARA [bitterly] A stroller! –­oh, nought but a wandering man.

PIPER, Well, would you have a man take root, I ask?

BARBARA That swallows swords. . . .

PIPER Is he a comely man?

BARBARA That swallows swords!

PIPER What’s manlier to swallow? Did he but swallow pancakes, were that praise? Pancakes and sausage, like your Hamelin yokels? He swallows fire and swords, I say, and more. And yet this man hath for a whole noon-hour Guarded you while you slept; still as a dove, Distant and kind as shadow; giant-strong For his enchanted princess, even you.

BARBARA So you bewitched me, then.

PIPER [wildly] How do I know?

BARBARA Where are the children?

PIPER I’ll not tell you that. You are too much of Hamelin.

BARBARA You bewitched them!

PIPER Yes, so it seems. But how? Upon my life, ’T is more than I know, yes, a little more. [Rapidly: half in earnest and half in whimsy] Sometimes it works, and sometimes no. There are Some things upon my soul, I cannot do. [Watching her.]

BARBARA [expectantly] Not even with thy pipe?

PIPER Not even so. Some are too hard. Yet, yet, I love to try: And most, to try with all the hidden charms I have, that I have never counted through.

BARBARA [fascinated] Where are they?

PIPER [touching his heart] Here.

BARBARA What are they?

PIPER How do I know? If I knew all, why should I care to live? No, no! The game is What-Will-Happen-Next?

BARBARA And what will happen?

PIPER [tantalizingly] Ah! how do I know? It keeps me searching. ’T is so glad and sad And strange to find out, What-Will-Happen-Next! And mark you this: the strangest miracle. . .

BARBARA Yes!

PIPER Stranger than the Devil or thy Judgment; Stranger than piping, even when I pipe! Stranger than charming mice or even men

BARBARA [with tense expectancy] What is it? What?

PIPER [watching her] Why, what may come to pass Here in the heart. There is one very charm

BARBARA Oh!

PIPER Are you brave?

BARBARA [awe-struck] Oh!

PIPER [slowly] Will you drink the philter?

BARBARA ’Tis. . . some enchantment?

PIPER [mysteriously] ’T is a love philter.

BARBARA Oh, tell me first

PIPER Why, sooth, the only charm In it, is Love. It is clear well-water.

BARBARA [disappointed] Only well-water?

PIPER Love is only Love. It must be philters, then? [He comes down smiling and beckons to MICHAEL, who draws near, bewildered. This lady thirsts For magic! [He ties a long green scarf that he has over his shoulder, to a water-jar, and lowers it down the old well; while BARBARA watches, awe-struck. He continues to sing softly. Mind your eyes, Tune your tongue; Let it never he said, But sung, but sung!

MICHAEL [to BARBARA, timidly] I am glad at least, fair lady, To think how my poor show did give you pleasure That day that day when

BARBARA Ah! that day of doom!

MICHAEL What is your will?

BARBARA [passionately] I know not; and I care not! [Apart] Oh, it is true. And he a sword-eater! [The PIPER hauls up the jar, full of water.]

PIPER Michael, your cup.

[MICHAEL gives him a drinking-horn from his belt. The PIPER fills it with water, solemnly, and turns to BARBARA, who is at first defiant, then fascinated. Maiden, your ears. So: hearken. Before you drink of this, is it your will Forever to be gone from Hamelin?

BARBARA I must, I must.

PIPER Your mother?

BARBARA [piteously] I have no mother; Nor any father, more. He gave me up.

PIPER That did he! For a round one thousand guilders! Weep not, I say. First, loose you, heart and shoes, From Hamelin. Put off now, the dust, the mould, The cobble-stones, the little prying windows; The streets that dream o’ What the Neighbors Say. Think you were never born there. Think some Breath Wakened you early early on one morning, Deep in a Garden (but you knew not whose), Where voices of wild waters bubbling ran, Shaking down music from glad mountain-tops, Where the still peaks were burning in the dawn, Like fiery snow, down into greenest valleys, That do off their blue mist only to show Some deeper blue, some haunt of violets. No voice you heard, nothing you felt or saw, Save in your heart, the tumult of young birds, A nestful of wet wings and morning-cries, Throbbing for flight! . . . Then, for your Soul, new wakened, felt athirst, You turned to where that call of water led, Laughing for truth, all truth and star-like laughter! Beautiful water, that will never stay, But runs and laughs and sparkles in the heart, And sends live laughter trickling everywhere, And knows the thousand longings of the Earth! And as you drank it then, so now, drink here;

[He reaches her the horn. She has listened, motionless, like a thing bewitched, her eyes fixed and wide, as if she were sleep-walking. She drinks. MICHAEL stands near, also motionless. When she speaks, it is in a younger voice, shy, sweet and full of wonder.

And tell me, tell me, you, what happened then? What do you see?

BARBARA Ah! [She looks before her with wide, new eyes.]

PIPER Do you see a

BARBARA . . .Michael!

PIPER So! And a good one. And you call him?

BARBARA . . . Michael.

PIPER So. ’Tis a world of wonders, by my faith! What is the fairest thing you see but

BARBARA Michael.

PIPER And is he comely as a man should be? And strong? And wears good promise in his eyes, And keeps it with his heart and with his hands? [She nods like a child] And would you fear to go with him?

BARBARA No, no!

PIPER Then reach to him that little hand of yours.

[MICHAEL, wonder-struck, runs to the jar, pours water upon his hand, rubs it off with haste, and falls on his knees before her, taking her hand fearfully.

BARBARA [timidly] And can he talk?

PIPER Yes, yes. The maid’s bewildered. Fear nothing. Thou’rt so dumb, man! Yes, yes, yes. Only he kneels; he cannot yet believe. Speak roundly to him. Will you go with him? He will be gentler to you than a father: He would be brothers five, and dearest friend, And sweetheart, ay, and knight and serving-man!

BARBARA Yes, yes, I know he will. And can he talk, too?

PIPER Lady, you have bewitched him.

MICHAEL Oh! dear Lady, With you with you, I dare not ope my mouth Saving to sing, or pray!

PIPER Let it be singing! Lad, ’t is a wildered maiden, with no home Save only thee; and she is more a child Than yesterday.

MICHAEL Oh, lordly, wondrous world! How is it, Sweet, you smile upon me now?

BARBARA Sure I have ever smiled on thee. How not? Art thou not Michael? And thou lovest me. And I love thee! If I unloved thee ever, It was some spell. [Rapturously] But this, ah, This is I! [MICHAEL, on his knees, winds his arms about her.

PIPER [softly] It is all true, all true. Lad, do not doubt; The golden cage is broken.

MICHAEL Oh! more strange Than morning dreams! I am like one new-born; I am a speechless babe. And this is she, My Moon I cried for, here,

PIPER It is thy bride.

MICHAEL Thou wilt not fear to come with me?

BARBARA With thee? With thee! Ah, look! What have I more than thee? And thou art mine, tall fellow! How comes it now Right happily that I am pranked so fair! [She touches her fineries, her long pearl-strings, joyously] And all this came so near to burying; This!

MICHAEL And this dearer gold. [Kissing her hair.]

BARBARA All, all for thee! [She leans over in a playful rapture and binds her hair about him] Look, I will be thy garden that we lost, Yea, everywhere, in every wilderness. There shall none fright us with a flaming sword! But I will be thy garden!

[There is the sound of a herd-bell approaching.

PIPER See, how the sunlight soon shall pour red wine To make your marriage-feast! And do you hear That faery bell? No fear! ’T is some white creature, Seeking her whiter lamb. Go; find our hermit; And he shall bless you, as a hermit can! And be your pledge for shelter. There’s the path. [To MICHAEL] Follow each other, close!

MICHAEL Beyond the Sun!

PIPER A golden afternoon, and all is well!

[He gives MICHAEL his cloak to wrap round BARBARA. They go, hand in hand, up into the hills, The herd-bell sounds softly. The PIPER cocks his head like a squirrel, and listens with delight. He watches the two till they disappear; then comes down joyously.

PIPER If you can only catch them while they’re young!

[The herd-bell sounds nearer. He lets down a water-jar into the well again. The nearness of the hell startles him. He becomes watchful as a wild creature. It sounds nearer and nearer. A woman’s voice calls like the wind: ’Jan! Jan!’ The PIPER, tense and cautious, moves softly down into the shrubbery by the well.

VERONIKA’S VOICE Jan!

PIPER Hist! Who dared?

VERONIKA’S VOICE . . . Jan!

PIPER Who dared, I say? A woman. ’T is a woman!

[Enter VERONIKA, on the road from Hamelin. She is very pale and worn, and drags herself along, clutching in her hand a herd-bell. She looks about her, holds up the bell and shakes it once softly, covering it with her fingers again; then she sits wearily down at the foot of the ruined shrine and covers her face, with a sharp breath.

VERONIKA . . . Ah, ah, ah! [The PIPER watches with breathless wonder and fascination. It seems to horrify him.

PIPER [under breath] That woman!

[VERONIKA lifts her head suddenly and sees the motion of the bushes.

VERONIKA He is coming! He is here! [She darts towards the well. The PIPER springs up. Oh, God of Mercy! . . . It is only you! Where is he? Where? Where are you hiding him?

PIPER [confusedly] Woman . . . what do you, wandering, with that bell? That herd-bell?

VERONIKA Oh! are you man or cloud? . . . Where is my Jan? Jan, Jan, the little lame one! He is mine. He lives, I know he lives. I know yes, yes, You’ve hidden him. I will be patient. Yes.

PIPER Surely he lives!

VERONIKA Lives! will you swear it? Ah, I will believe! But he . . . is not so strong As all the others.

PIPER [apart] Aie, how horrible! [To her] Sit you down here. You cannot go away While you are yet so pale. Why are you thus? [She looks at him distractedly.]

VERONIKA You, who have torn the hearts out of our bodies And left the city like a place of graves, Why am I spent? Ah, ah! But he’s alive! Yes, yes, he’s living.

PIPER Oh, how horrible! Why should he not be living? What am I?

VERONIKA I do not know.

PIPER Do you take me for the Devil?

VERONIKA I do not know.

PIPER Yet you were not afraid?

VERONIKA What is there now to fear?

PIPER [watching her] Where are the townsfolk?

VERONIKA They are all gone to Rudersheim. . .

PIPER [still watchful] How so?

VERONIKA Where, for a penance, Barbara, Jacob’s daughter, Will take the veil. His one, for all of ours! It will be over now.

PIPER Have none returned?

VERONIKA I know not; I am searching, since the dawn.

PIPER To-day?

VERONIKA And every day. PIPER That herd-bell, there Why do you bring it?

VERONIKA [sobbing] Oh, he loves them so. I knew, if he but heard it, he would follow

PIPER No more. I know!

VERONIKA An if he could!

PIPER [like a wounded animal] You hurt me Somewhere, you hurt me!

VERONIKA You! A man of air?

PIPER What, am I that?

VERONIKA What are you? Give them back! Give them to me, I say. You have them hidden. Are they all living?

PIPER [struggling with pity] Yes, yes.

VERONIKA Give them back!

PIPER No.

VERONIKA But they live, they live?

PIPER Wilt thou believe me?

VERONIKA And are they safe?

PIPER Yes.

VERONIKA And you hide them?

PIPER Yes.

VERONIKA And are they . . . warm?

PIPER Yes.

VERONIKA Are they happy? Oh, That cannot be! But do they laugh, sometimes?

PIPER Yes.

VERONIKA Then you’ll give them back again!

PIPER No, never.

VERONIKA [Half to herself, distraught between suspense and hope] I must be patient.

PIPER Woman, they all are mine. I hold them in my hands; they bide with me. What’s breath and blood, what are the hearts of children, To Hamelin, while it heaps its money-bags?

VERONIKA You cared not for the money.

PIPER No? You seem A foreign woman, come from very far, That you should know.

VERONIKA I know. I was not born There. But you wrong them. There were yet a few Who would have dealt with you more honestly Than this Jacobus, or

PIPER Or Kurt the Syndic! Believe It not. Those two be tongue and brain For the whole town! I know them. And that town Stands as the will of other towns, a score, That make us wandering poor the things we are! It stands for all, unto the end of time, That turns this bright world black and the Sun cold, With hate, and hoarding; all-triumphant Greed That spreads above the roots of all despair, And misery, and rotting of the soul! Now shall they learn if money-bags can learn What turns the bright world black, and the Sun cold; And what’s that creature that they call a child! And what this winged thing men name a heart Beating queer rhythms that they long to kill. What is this hunger and this thirst to sing, To laugh, to fight, to hope, to be believed? And what is truth? And who did make the stars?

I have to pay for fifty thousand hates, Greeds, cruelties; such barbarous tortured days A tiger would disdain; for all my kind! Not my one mother, not my own of kin, All, all, who wear the motley in the heart Or on the body: for all caged glories And trodden wings, and sorrows laughed to scorn. I, I! At last.

VERONIKA Ah, me! How can I say: Yet make them happier than they let you be?

PIPER Woman, you could! They know not how to be Happy! They turn to darkness and to woe All that is made for joy. They deal with men As, far across the mountains, in the south, Men trap a singing thrush, put out his eyes, And cage him up and bid him then to sing Sing before God that made him, yes, to sing!

I save the children. Yes, I save them, so, Save them forever, who shall save the world! Yes, even Hamelin. But for only you, What do they know of Children? Pfui, their own! Who knows a treasure, when it is his own? Do they not whine: ’Five mouths around the table; And a poor harvest. And now comes one more! God chastens us!’ Pfui!

VERONIKA [apart, dully] . . . But I must be patient.

PIPER You know, you know, that not one dared, save you, Dared all alone, to search this devil’s haunt.

VERONIKA They would have died

PIPER But never risked their souls! That knew I also.

VERONIKA Ah!

PIPER ‘Young faces,’ sooth, The old ones prate of! Bah, what is’t they want? ’Some one to work for me, when I am old; Some one to follow me unto my grave; Some one for me!’ Yes, yes. There is not one Old huddler-by-the-fire would shift his seat To a cold corner, if it might bring back All of the Children in one shower of light!

VERONIKA The old, ah, yes! But not

PIPER The younger men? Aha! Their pride to keep the name alive; The name, the name, the little Hamelin name, Tied to the trade; carved plain upon his gravestone! Wonderful! If your name must chain you, live, To your gaol of a house, your trade you love not, why, Best go without a name, like me! How now? Woman, you suffer?

VERONIKA Ah, yet could I laugh, Piper, yet could I laugh, for one true word, But not of all men.

PIPER Then of whom?

VERONIKA Of Kurt.

PIPER Bah, Kurt the Councillor! a man to curse.

VERONIKA He is my husband.

PIPER [shortly] Thine? I knew it not. Thine? But it cannot be. He could not father That little Jan, that little shipwrecked Star.

VERONIKA Oh, then you love him? You will give him back?

PIPER The son of Kurt?

VERONIKA No, not his son! No, no. He is all mine, all mine. Kurt’s sons are straight, And ruddy, like Kurt’s wife of Hamelin there, Who died before.

PIPER And you were wed. . .

VERONIKA So young, It is all like some dream before the sunrise, That left me but that little shipwrecked Star.

PIPER Why did you marry Kurt the Councillor?

VERONIKA [humbly] He wanted me. Once I was beautiful.

PIPER [wonderingly] What, more than now?

VERONIKA Mock if you will.

PIPER I mock you; O Woman, . . . you are very beautiful.

VERONIKA I meant, with my poor self, to buy him house And warmth, and softness for his little feet. Oh, then I knew not, when we sell our hearts, We buy us nothing.

PIPER Now you know.

VERONIKA I know. His dearest home it was, to keep my heart Alone and beautiful, and clear and still; And to keep all the gladness in my heart, That bubbled from nowhere! for him to drink; And to be houseless of all other things, Even as the Lonely Man. [The PIPER starts] Where is the child?

PIPER No; that I will not tell. Only thus much: I love thy child. Trust me, I love them, all. They are the brightest miracle I know. Wherever I go, I search the eyes of men To find such clearness; and it is not there. Lies, greed and cruelty, and dreadful dark! And all that makes Him sad these thousand years, And keeps His forehead bleeding. Ah, you know!

VERONIKA Whom do you think on?

PIPER Why, the Lonely Man, But now I have the children safe with me; And men shall never teach them what men know; Those radiant things that have no wish at all Save for what is all-beautiful! the Rainbow, The running Water, and the Moon, the Moon! The only things worth having!

VERONIKA Oh, you will not Give him to me?

PIPER How give you yours again, And not the others? What a life for him! [She hides her face] And Kurt the Syndic, left without his sons? Bah, do not dream of it! What would Kurt do? And hearken here! Should any hunt me down, Take care. Who then could bring the children back?

VERONIKA Jan! Jan!

PIPER He loves me. He is happy.

VERONIKA [passionately ] No! Without me? No.

PIPER He has not even once Called you.

VERONIKA [staggering] Ah, ah! how cruel! ’Tis the spell, The spell.

PIPER [touching his heart] You hurt me, here. What makes it, Woman? Would you not have him happy?

VERONIKA O my God!

PIPER [offering her water] Drink here. Take heart. O Woman, they must stay! ’T is better so. No, no, I mock thee not. Thou foldest all about me like the Dark That holds the stars. I would I were thy child.|

VERONIKA But I will find him. I will find him

PIPER No, It must not be! Their life is bound with mine. If I be harmed, they perish. Keep that word, Go, go!

VERONIKA [passionately] My longing will bring back my Own.

PIPER Ah, long not so.

VERONIKA Yes, it will bring him back! He breathes. And I will wish him home to me, Till my heart break!

PIPER Hearts never break in Hamelin. Go, then; and teach those other ones to long; Wake up those dead!

VERONIKA Peace. I shall draw him home.

PIPER Not till he cries for thee.

VERONIKA Oh, that will be Soon, soon.

PIPER [gently] Remember, if one word of thine Set on the hounds to track me down and slay me, They will be lost forever; they would die, They, who are in my keeping.

VERONIKA Yea, I hear. But he will come . . . oh, he will come to me, Soon, soon.

[She goes, haltingly, and disappears along the road to Hamelin. The PIPER, alone, stands spell-bound, breathing hard, and looking after her. Then he turns his head and comes down, doggedly. Again he pauses. With a sudden sharp effort he turns, and crosses with passionate appeal to the shrine, his arm uplifted towards the carven Christ as if he warded off some accusation. His speech comes in a torrent.

PIPER I will not, no, I will not, Lonely Man! I have them in my hand. I have them all All all! And I have lived unto this day. You understand . . . [He waits as if for some reply] You know what men they are. And what have they to do with such as these? Think of those old as death, in body and heart, Hugging their wretched hoardings, in cold fear Of moth and rust! While these miraculous ones, Like golden creatures made of sunset-cloud, Go out forever, every day, fade by With music and wild stars! Ah, but You know. The hermit told me once. You loved them, too. But I know more than he, how You must love them: Their laughter, and their bubbling, skylark words To cool Your heart. Oh, listen, Lonely Man!

Oh, let me keep them! I will bring them to You, Still nights, and breathless mornings; they shall touch Your hands and feet with all their swarming hands, Like showering petals warm on furrowed ground, All sweetness! They will make Thee whole again, With love. Thou wilt lookup and smile on us!

Why not? I know the half You will be saying. You will be thinking of Your Mother. Ah, But she was different. She was not as they. She was more like . . . this one, the wife of Kurt! Of Kurt! No, no; ask me not this, not this! Here is some dawn of day for Hamelin, now! -Tis hearts of men You want. Not mumbled prayers; Not greed and carven tombs, not misers’ candles; No offerings, more, from men that feed on men; Eternal psalms and endless cruelties! . . . Even from now, there may be hearts in Hamelin, Once stabbed awake! [He pleads, defends, excuses passionately; before his will gives way, as the arrow flies from the bow-string.] I will not give them back! And Jan, for Jan, that little one, that dearest To Thee and me, hark, he is wonderful. Ask it not of me. Thou dost know I cannot!

Look, Lonely Man! You shall have all of us To wander the world over, where You stand At all the crossways, and on lonely hills, Outside the churches, where the lost ones And the wayfaring men, and thieves and wolves And lonely creatures, and the ones that sing! We will show all men what we hear and see; And we will make Thee lift Thy head, and smile.

No, no, I cannot give them all! No, no. Why wilt Thou ask it? Let me keep but one. No, no, I will not. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Have Thy way.--I will!

Curtain