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.