Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/432

 e blind boy related his sensations when he heard the piper play. In other accounts, the lad was lame, and he alone was left; and in after years he was sad. And thus he accounted for his settled melancholy— “It’s dull in our town since my playmates left; I can’t forget that I’m bereft Of all the pleasant sights they see, Which the piper also promised me; For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, Joining the town, and just at hand, Where waters gush’d, and fruit-trees grew, And flowers put forth a fairer hue, And every thing was strange and new; And sparrows were brighter than peacocks here And their dogs outran our fallow deer, And honey bees had lost their stings, And horses were born with eagle’s wings; And just as I became assured My lame foot would be speedily cured, The music stopp’d, and I stood still, And found myself outside the hill, Left alone against my will, To go now limping as before, And never hear of that country more.” The number of children that perished was one hundred and thirty. Fathers and mothers rushed to the east gate, but when they came to the mountain, called Koppenberg, into which the train had disappeared, nothing was observable except a small hollow, where the sorcerer and their little ones had