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?