Averted Malefice

Where mandrakes, crying from the moonless fen, Told how a witch, with eyes of owl or bat, Found, and each root maleficently fat Pulled for her waiting cauldron, on my ken Upstole, escaping to the world of men, A vapor as of some infernal vat; Across the stars it clomb, and caught thereat As if their bright regard to veil again.

Despite the web, methought they knew, appalled, The stealthier weft in which all sound was still. . . . Then sprang, as if the night found breath anew A wind whereby the stars were disenthralled. . . . Far off, I heard the cry of frustrate ill, A witch that wailed above her curdled brew.