ill take the veil. His one, for all of ours!
It will be over now.

PIPER
Have none returned?

VERONIKA
I know not; I am searching, since the dawn.

PIPER
To-day?

VERONIKA
And every day.
PIPER
That herd-bell, there
Why do you bring it?

VERONIKA
[sobbing]
Oh, he loves them so.
I knew, if he but heard it, he would follow--

PIPER
No more. I know!

VERONIKA
An if he could!

PIPER
[like a wounded animal]
You hurt me
Somewhere,--you hurt me!

VERONIKA
You!--A man of air?

PIPER
What, am I that?

VERONIKA
What are you?--Give them back!
Give them to me, I say. You have them hidden.
Are they all living?

PIPER
[struggling with pity]
Yes, yes.

VERONIKA
Give them back!

PIPER
No.

VERONIKA
But they live, they live?

PIPER
--Wilt thou believe me?

VERONIKA
And are they safe?

PIPER
Yes.

VERONIKA
And you hide them?

PIPER
Yes.

VERONIKA
And are they . . . warm?

PIPER
--Yes.

VERONIKA
Are they happy?--Oh,
That cannot be!--But do they laugh, sometimes?

PIPER
Yes.

VERONIKA
--Then you'll give them back again!

PIPER
No, never.

VERONIKA
[Half to herself, distraught between suspense and hope]
I must be patient.

PIPER
Woman, they all are mine.
I hold them in my hands; they bide with me.
What's breath and blood,--what are the hearts of children,
To Hamelin,--while it heaps its money-bags?

VERONIKA
You cared not for the money.

PIPER
No?--You seem
A foreign woman,--come from very far,
That you should know.

VERONIKA
I know. I was not born
There. But you wrong them. There were yet a few
Who would have dealt with you more honestly
Than this Jacobus, or--

PIPER
Or Kurt the Syndic!
Believe It not. Those two be tongue and brain
For the whole town! I know them. And that town
Stands as the will of other towns, a score,
That make us wandering poor the things we are!
It stands for all, unto the end of time,
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