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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420823" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Witch of Wenham</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I.<br>Along Crane River's sunny slopes<br>Blew warm the winds of May,<br>And over Naumkeag's ancient oaks<br>The green outgrew the gray.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The grass was green on Rial-side,<br>The early birds at will<br>Waked up the violet in its dell,<br>The wind-flower on its hill.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Where go you, in your Sunday coat,<br>Son Andrew, tell me, pray.'<br>For striped perch in Wenham Lake<br>I go to fish to-day.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Unharmed of thee in Wenham Lake<br>The mottled perch shall be<br>A blue-eyed witch sits on the bank<br>And weaves her net for thee.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'She weaves her golden hair; she sings<br>Her spell-song low and faint;<br>The wickedest witch in Salem jail<br>Is to that girl a saint.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Nay, mother, hold thy cruel tongue;<br>God knows,' the young man cried,<br>'He never made a whiter soul<br>Than hers by Wenham side.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'She tends her mother sick and blind,<br>And every want supplies;<br>To her above the blessed Book<br>She lends her soft blue eyes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Her voice is glad with holy songs,<br>Her lips are sweet with prayer;<br>Go where you will, in ten miles round<br>Is none more good and fair.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Son Andrew, for the love of God<br>And of thy mother, stay!'<br>She clasped her hands, she wept aloud,<br>But Andrew rode away.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'O reverend sir, my Andrew's soul<br>The Wenham witch has caught;<br>She holds him with the curled gold<br>Whereof her snare is wrought.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'She charms him with her great blue eyes,<br>She binds him with her hair;<br>Oh, break the spell with holy words,<br>Unbind him with a prayer!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Take heart,' the painful preacher said,<br>'This mischief shall not be;<br>The witch shall perish in her sins<br>And Andrew shall go free.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Our poor Ann Putnam testifies<br>She saw her weave a spell,<br>Bare-armed, loose-haired, at full of moon,<br>Around a dried-up well.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''Spring up, O well!' she softly sang<br>The Hebrew's old refrain<br>(For Satan uses Bible words),<br>Till water flowed a-main.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'And many a goodwife heard her speak<br>By Wenham water words<br>That made the buttercups take wings<br>And turn to yellow birds.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'They say that swarming wild bees seek<br>The hive at her command;<br>And fishes swim to take their food<br>From out her dainty hand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Meek as she sits in meeting-time,<br>The godly minister<br>Notes well the spell that doth compel<br>The young men's eyes to her.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The mole upon her dimpled chin<br>Is Satan's seal and sign;<br>Her lips are red with evil bread<br>And stain of unblest wine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'For Tituba, my Indian, saith<br>At Quasycung she took<br>The Black Man's godless sacrament<br>And signed his dreadful book.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Last night my sore-afflicted child<br>Against the young witch cried.<br>To take her Marshal Herrick rides<br>Even now to Wenham side.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The marshal in his saddle sat,<br>His daughter at his knee;<br>'I go to fetch that arrant witch,<br>Thy fair playmate,' quoth he.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Her spectre walks the parsonage,<br>And haunts both hall and stair;<br>They know her by the great blue eyes<br>And floating gold of hair.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'They lie, they lie, my father dear!<br>No foul old witch is she,<br>But sweet and good and crystal-pure<br>As Wenham waters be.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I tell thee, child, the Lord hath set<br>Before us good and ill,<br>And woe to all whose carnal loves<br>Oppose His righteous will.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Between Him and the powers of hell<br>Choose thou, my child, to-day<br>No sparing hand, no pitying eye,<br>When God commands to slay!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He went his way; the old wives shook<br>With fear as he drew nigh;<br>The children in the dooryards held<br>Their breath as he passed by.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Too well they knew the gaunt gray horse<br>The grim witch-hunter rode<br>The pale Apocalyptic beast<br>By grisly Death bestrode.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II.<br>Oh, fair the face of Wenham Lake<br>Upon the young girl's shone,<br>Her tender mouth, her dreaming eyes,<br>Her yellow hair outblown.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By happy youth and love attuned<br>To natural harmonies,<br>The singing birds, the whispering wind,<br>She sat beneath the trees.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sat shaping for her bridal dress<br>Her mother's wedding gown,<br>When lo! the marshal, writ in hand,<br>From Alford hill rode down.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His face was hard with cruel fear,<br>He grasped the maiden's hands<br>'Come with me unto Salem town,<br>For so the law commands!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Oh, let me to my mother say<br>Farewell before I go!'<br>He closer tied her little hands<br>Unto his saddle bow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Unhand me,' cried she piteously,<br>'For thy sweet daughter's sake.'<br>'I'll keep my daughter safe,' he said,<br>'From the witch of Wenham Lake.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Oh, leave me for my mother's sake,<br>She needs my eyes to see.'<br>'Those eyes, young witch, the crows shall peck<br>From off the gallows-tree.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He bore her to a farm-house old,<br>And up its stairway long,<br>And closed on her the garret-door<br>With iron bolted strong.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The day died out, the night came down<br>Her evening prayer she said,<br>While, through the dark, strange faces seemed<br>To mock her as she prayed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The present horror deepened all<br>The fears her childhood knew;<br>The awe wherewith the air was filled<br>With every breath she drew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And could it be, she trembling asked,<br>Some secret thought or sin<br>Had shut good angels from her heart<br>And let the bad ones in?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Had she in some forgotten dream<br>Let go her hold on Heaven,<br>And sold herself unwittingly<br>To spirits unforgiven?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, weird and still the dark hours passed;<br>No human sound she heard,<br>But up and down the chimney stack<br>The swallows moaned and stirred.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And o'er her, with a dread surmise<br>Of evil sight and sound,<br>The blind bats on their leathern wings<br>Went wheeling round and round.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Low hanging in the midnight sky<br>Looked in a half-faced moon.<br>Was it a dream, or did she hear<br>Her lover's whistled tune?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She forced the oaken scuttle back;<br>A whisper reached her ear<br>'Slide down the roof to me,' it said,<br>'So softly none may hear.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She slid along the sloping roof<br>Till from its eaves she hung,<br>And felt the loosened shingles yield<br>To which her fingers clung.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Below, her lover stretched his hands<br>And touched her feet so small;<br>'Drop down to me, dear heart,' he said,<br>'My arms shall break the fall.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He set her on his pillion soft,<br>Her arms about him twined;<br>And, noiseless as if velvet-shod,<br>They left the house behind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But when they reached the open way,<br>Full free the rein he cast;<br>Oh, never through the mirk midnight<br>Rode man and maid more fast.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Along the wild wood-paths they sped,<br>The bridgeless streams they swam;<br>At set of moon they passed the Bass,<br>At sunrise Agawam.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At high noon on the Merrimac<br>The ancient ferryman<br>Forgot, at times, his idle oars,<br>So fair a freight to scan.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And when from off his grounded boat<br>He saw them mount and ride,<br>'God keep her from the evil eye,<br>And harm of witch!' he cried.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The maiden laughed, as youth will laugh<br>At all its fears gone by;<br>'He does not know,' she whispered low,<br>'A little witch am I.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All day he urged his weary horse,<br>And, in the red sundown,<br>Drew rein before a friendly door<br>In distant Berwick town.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A fellow-feeling for the wronged<br>The Quaker people felt;<br>And safe beside their kindly hearths<br>The hunted maiden dwelt,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Until from off its breast the land<br>The haunting horror threw,<br>And hatred, born of ghastly dreams,<br>To shame and pity grew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sad were the year's spring morns, and sad<br>Its golden summer day,<br>But blithe and glad its withered fields,<br>And skies of ashen gray;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For spell and charm had power no more,<br>The spectres ceased to roam,<br>And scattered households knelt again<br>Around the hearths of home.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And when once more by Beaver Dam<br>The meadow-lark outsang,<br>And once again on all the hills<br>The early violets sprang,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And all the windy pasture slopes<br>Lay green within the arms<br>Of creeks that bore the salted sea<br>To pleasant inland farms,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The smith filed off the chains he forged,<br>The jail-bolts backward fell;<br>And youth and hoary age came forth<br>Like souls escaped from hell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Greenleaf+Whittier">John Greenleaf Whittier</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420823" data-title="The Witch of Wenham de John Greenleaf Whittier" data-description="I.
Along Crane River's sunny slopes
Blew warm the winds of May,
And over Naumkeag's ancient oaks
The green outgrew the gray.

The grass was green on Rial-side,
The early birds at will
Waked up the violet in its dell,
The wind-flower on its hill.

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