Treasure-seeking forth I sped.

“Thou shalt have my soul instead!”

  Thus I wrote, and with my blood.

Ring round ring I forthwith drew,

Wondrous flames collected there,

Herbs and bones in order fair,

Till the charm had work’d aright. 
Then, to learned precepts true,

Dug to find some treasure old,

In the place my art foretold

  Black and stormy was the night.

Coming o’er the distant plain,

With the glimmer of a star,

Soon I saw a light afar,

As the hour of midnight knell’d. 
Preparation was in vain.

Sudden all was lighted up

With the lustre of a cup

  That a beauteous boy upheld.

Sweetly seem’d his eves to laugh

Neath his flow’ry chaplet’s load;

With the drink that brightly glow’d,

He the circle enter’d in. 
And he kindly bade me quaff: 

Then methought “This child can ne’er,

With his gift so bright and fair,

  To the arch-fiend be akin.”

“Pure life’s courage drink!” cried he: 
“This advice to prize then learn,—­

Never to this place return

Trusting in thy spells absurd;
Dig no longer fruitlessly.

Guests by night, and toil by day!

Weeks laborious, feast-days gay!

  Be thy future magic-word!

1797.
-----
The rat-catcher.

I am the bard known far and wide,
The travell’d rat-catcher beside;
A man most needful to this town,
So glorious through its old renown. 
However many rats I see,
How many weasels there may be,
I cleanse the place from ev’ry one,
All needs must helter-skelter run.

Sometimes the bard so full of cheer
As a child-catcher will appear,
Who e’en the wildest captive brings,
Whene’er his golden tales he sings. 
However proud each boy in heart,
However much the maidens start,
I bid the chords sweet music make,
And all must follow in my wake.

Sometimes the skilful bard ye view
In the form of maiden-catcher too;
For he no city enters e’er,
Without effecting wonders there. 
However coy may be each maid,
However the women seem afraid,
Yet all will love-sick be ere long
To sound of magic lute and song.

[Da Capo.]                  1803.*
-----

The Spinner.

As I calmly sat and span,

Toiling with all zeal,
Lo! a young and handsome man

Pass’d my spinning-wheel.

And he praised,—­what harm was there?—­

Sweet the things he said—­
Praised my flax-resembling hair,

And the even thread.

He with this was not content,

But must needs do more;
And in twain the thread was rent,

Though ’twas safe before.