A little man who muffins sold,

When I was little too,

Carried a face of giant mould,

But tall he never grew.

His arms were legs for strength and size,

His coat-tail touch'd his heels;

His brows were forests o'er his eyes,

His voice like waggon-wheels.

When fallen leaves together flock,

And gusts begin to squall,

And suns go down at six o'clock,

You heard his muffin call.

Born in the equinoctial blast,

He came and shook his bell;

And with the equinox he pass'd,

But whither none could tell.

Some thought the monster turn'd to dew,

When muffins ceased to reign,

And lay in buds the summer through

Till muffin-time again.

Or Satyr, used the woods to rove,

Or ev'n old Caliban;

Drawn by the lure of oven-stove

To be a muffin-man.

The dwarf was not a churlish elf,

Who thought folks stared to scoff;

But used deformity itself

To set his muffins off.

He stood at doors, and talk'd with cooks,

While strangers took his span,

And grimly smiled with childhood's looks

At him, the muffin-man.

When others fled from nipping frost,

And fled from drenching skies,

And when in fogs the street was lost,

You saw his figure rise.

One night his tinkle did not sound,

He fail'd each 'custom'd door;

'Twas first of an eternal round

Of nights he walk'd no more.

When, borne in arms, my infant eye

The restless search began,

The nursery-maid was wont to cry,

"See John, the muffin-man!"

My path, with things familiar spread,

Death's foot had seldom cross'd;

And when they said that John was dead,

I stood in wonder lost.

New muffin-men from lamp to lamp,

With careless glance I scan;

For none can ever raze thy stamp,

Oh John, thou muffin-man!

Thou standest snatch'd from time and storm,

A statue of the soul;

And round thy carved and goblin form,

Past days—past days unroll.

We will not part—Affection dim

This song shall help to fan;

And Memory, firmer bound to him,

Shall keep her Muffin-man.