THE SUMMER and autumn had been so wet, | |
| That in winter the corn was growing yet: | |
| ’T was a piteous sight to see all around | |
| The grain lie rotting on the ground. | |
| |
| Every day the starving poor | 5 |
| Crowded around Bishop Hatto’s door; | |
| For he had a plentiful last-year’s store, | |
| And all the neighborhood could tell | |
| His granaries were furnished well. | |
| |
| At last Bishop Hatto appointed a day | 10 |
| To quiet the poor without delay; | |
| He bade them to his great barn repair, | |
| And they should have food for the winter there. | |
| |
| Rejoiced the tidings good to hear, | |
| The poor folks flocked from far and near; | 15 |
| The great barn was full as it could hold | |
| Of women and children, and young and old. | |
| |
| Then, when he saw it could hold no more, | |
| Bishop Hatto he made fast the door; | |
| And whilst for mercy on Christ they call, | 20 |
| He set fire to the barn, and burnt them all. | |
| |
| “I’ faith, ’t is an excellent bonfire!” quoth he; | |
| “And the country is greatly obliged to me | |
| For ridding it, in these times forlorn, | |
| Of rats that only consume the corn.” | 25 |
| |
| So then to his palace returned he, | |
| And he sate down to supper merrily, | |
| And he slept that night like an innocent man; | |
| But Bishop Hatto never slept again. | |
| |
| In the morning, as he entered the hall, | 30 |
| Where his picture hung against the wall, | |
| A sweat like death all over him came, | |
| For the rats had eaten it out of the frame. | |
| |
| As he looked, there came a man from his farm— | |
| He had a countenance white with alarm: | 35 |
| “My lord, I opened your granaries this morn, | |
| And the rats had eaten all your corn.” | |
| |
| Another came running presently, | |
| And he was pale as pale could be. | |
| “Fly! my lord bishop, fly!” quoth he, | 40 |
| “Ten thousand rats are coming this way,— | |
| The Lord forgive you for yesterday!” | |
| |
| “I ’ll go to my tower in the Rhine,” replied he; | |
| “’T is the safest place in Germany,— | |
| The walls are high, and the shores are steep, | 45 |
| And the tide is strong, and the water deep.” | |
| |
| Bishop Hatto fearfully hastened away; | |
| And he crossed the Rhine without delay, | |
| And reached his tower, and barred with care | |
| All the windows, doors, and loop-holes there. | 50 |
| |
| He laid him down and closed his eyes, | |
| But soon a scream made him arise; | |
| He started, and saw two eyes of flame | |
| On his pillow, from whence the screaming came. | |
| |
| He listened and looked,—it was only the cat; | 55 |
| But the bishop he grew more fearful for that, | |
| For she sate screaming, mad with fear, | |
| At the army of rats that were drawing near. | |
| |
| For they have swum over the river so deep, | |
| And they have climbed the shores so steep, | 60 |
| And now by thousands up they crawl | |
| To the holes and the windows in the wall. | |
| |
| Down on his knees the bishop fell, | |
| And faster and faster his beads did he tell, | |
| As louder and louder, drawing near, | 65 |
| The saw of their teeth without he could hear. | |
| |
| And in at the windows, and in at the door, | |
| And through the walls, by thousands they pour; | |
| And down from the ceiling and up through the floor, | |
| From the right and the left, from behind and before, | 70 |
| From within and without, from above and below,— | |
| And all at once to the bishop they go. | |
| |
| They have whetted their teeth against the stones, | |
| And now they pick the bishop’s bones; | |
| They gnawed the flesh from every limb, | 75 |
| For they were sent to do judgment on him! | |
| |
