Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/150

118  Go where you will, in ten miles round
 * Is none more good and fair.”

“Son Andrew, for the love of God
 * And of thy mother, stay!”

She clasped her hands, she wept aloud,
 * But Andrew rode away.

“O reverend sir, my Andrew’s soul
 * The Wenham witch has caught;

She holds him with the curlëd gold
 * Whereof her snare is wrought.

“She charms him with her great blue eyes,
 * She binds him with her hair;

Oh, break the spell with holy words,
 * Unbind him with a prayer!”

“Take heart,” the painful preacher said,
 * “This mischief shall not be;

The witch shall perish in her sins
 * And Andrew shall go free.

“Our poor Ann Putnam testifies
 * She saw her weave a spell,

Bare-armed, loose-haired, at full of moon,
 * Around a dried-up well.

“ ‘Spring up, O well!’ she softly sang
 * The Hebrew’s old refrain

(For Satan uses Bible words),
 * Till water flowed amain.

“And many a goodwife heard her speak
 * By Wenham water words

That made the buttercups take wings
 * And turn to yellow birds.

“They say that swarming wild bees seek
 * The hive at her command;

And fishes swim to take their food
 * From out her dainty hand.

“Meek as she sits in meeting-time,
 * The godly minister

Notes well the spell that doth compel
 * The young men’s eyes to her.

“The mole upon her dimpled chin
 * Is Satan’s seal and sign

Her lips are red with evil bread
 * And stain of unblest wine.

“For Tituba, my Indian, saith
 * At Quasycung she took

The Black Man’s godless sacrament
 * And signed his dreadful book.

“Last night my sore-afflicted child
 * Against the young witch cried,

To take her Marshal Herrick rides
 * Even now to Wenham side.”

The marshal in his saddle sat,
 * His daughter at his knee;

“I go to fetch that arrant witch,
 * Thy fair playmate,” quoth he.

“her spectre walks the parsonage,
 * And haunts both hall and stair;

They know her by the great blue eyes
 * And floating gold of hair.”

“They lie, they lie, my father dear!
 * No foul old witch is she,

But sweet and good and crystal-pure
 * As Wenham waters be.”

“I tell thee, child, the Lord hath set
 * Before us good and ill,

And woe to all whose carnal loves
 * Oppose His righteous will.

“Between Him and the powers of hell
 * Choose thou, my child, to-day:

No sparing hand, no pitying eye,
 * When God commands to slay!”

He went his way; the old wives shook
 * With fear as he drew nigh;

The children in the dooryards held
 * Their breath as he passed by.

Too well they knew the gaunt gray horse
 * The grim witch-hunter rode,

The pale Apocalyptic beast
 * By grisly Death bestrode.

Oh, fair the face of Wenham Lake
 * Upon the young girl’s shone,

Her tender mouth, her dreaming eyes,
 * Her yellow hair outblown.

By happy youth and love attuned
 * To natural harmonies,

The singing birds, the whispering wind,
 * She sat beneath the trees.