The Piper Part 17

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 pa.s.s 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 [pa.s.sionately]

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]