Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/157

COUSIN LUCRECE In time you shall a wizard meet

With spells more potent than your own,

And you shall know your master, Sweet,

And for these witcheries atone.

For you at his behest shall wear

A veil, and seek with him the church,

And at the altar rail forswear

The craft that left you in the lurch;

But oft thereafter, musing long,

With smile, and sigh, and conscience-twitch,

You shall too late confess the wrong—

A captive and repentant witch.

1884.

COUSIN LUCRECE

where the curfew

Still, they say, rings,

Time rested long ago,

Folding his wings;

Here, on old Norwich's

Out-along road,

Cousin Lucretia

Had her abode.

Norridge, not Nor-wich

(See Mother Goose),

Good enough English

For a song's use.

Side and roof shingled,

All of a piece,

Here was the cottage

Of Cousin Lucrece.

Living forlornly

On nothing a year, 127