Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79.
Gods Judgment on a Wicked Bishop
By Robert Southey (17741843)T
That in winter the corn was growing yet:
’T was a piteous sight to see, all around,
The grain lie rotting on the ground.
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.
To quiet the poor without delay;
He bade them to his great barn repair,
And they should have food for the winter there.
The poor folk flocked from far and near;
The great barn was full as it could hold
Of women and children, and young and old.
Bishop Hatto he made fast the door;
And, while for mercy on Christ they call,
He set fire to the barn, and burnt them all.
“And the country is greatly obliged to me
For ridding it in these times forlorn
Of rats that only consume the corn.”
And he sat down to supper merrily,
And he slept that night like an innocent man;
But Bishop Hatto never slept again.
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.
He had a countenance white with alarm:
“My Lord, I opened your granaries this morn,
And the rats had eaten all your corn.”
And he was pale as pale could be:
“Fly, my Lord Bishop, fly!” quoth he,
Ten thousand rats are coming this way:
The Lord forgive you for yesterday!”
“’T is the safest place in Germany;
The walls are high, and the shores are steep,
And the stream is strong, and the water deep.”
And he crossed the Rhine without delay,
And reached his tower, and barred with care
All windows, doors, and loopholes there.
But soon a scream made him arise:
He started, and saw two eyes of flame
On his pillow, from whence the screaming came.
But the Bishop he grew more fearful for that;
For she sat screaming, mad with fear
At the army of rats that were drawing near.
And they have climbed the shores so steep;
And up the tower their way is bent,
To do the work for which they were sent.
By thousands they come, and by myriads and more,
Such numbers had never been heard of before,
Such a judgment had never been witnessed of yore.
And faster and faster his beads did tell,
As, louder and louder drawing near,
The gnawing of their teeth he could hear.
And through the walls, helter-skelter they pour,
And down from the ceiling, and up through the floor,
From the right and the left, from behind and before,
From within and without, from above and below,
And all at once to the Bishop they go.
And now they pick the Bishop’s bones:
They gnawed the flesh from every limb;
For they were sent to do judgment on him!