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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420824" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Witch's Daughter</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was the pleasant harvest time,<br>When cellar-bins are closely stowed,<br>And garrets bend beneath their load,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the old swallow-haunted barns -<br>Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams<br>Through which the moted sunlight streams,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And winds blow freshly in, to shake<br>The red plumes of the roosted cocks,<br>And the loose hay-mow's scented locks -</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Are filled with summer's ripened stores,<br>Its odorous grass and barley sheaves,<br>From their low scaffolds to their eaves.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">On Esek Harden's oaken floor, <br>With many an autmn threshing worn,<br>Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And thither came young men and maids,<br>Beneath a moon that, large and low,<br>Lit that sweet eve of long ago.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They took their places; some by chance,<br>And others by a merry voice<br>Or sweet smile guided to their choice.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How pleasantly the rising moon,<br>Between the shadow of the mows,<br>Looked on them through the great elm-boughs! -</div><div style="margin:10px 0">On sturdy boyhood sun-embrowned,<br>On girlhood with its solid curves<br>Of healthful strength and painless nerves!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And jests went round, and laughs that made<br>The house-dog answer with his howl,<br>And kept astir the barn-yard fowl;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And quaint old songs their fathers sung<br>In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors,<br>Ere Norman William trod their shores;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And tales, whose merry license shook<br>The fat sides of the Saxon thane,<br>Forgetful of the hovering Dane,—</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Rude plays to Celt and Cimbri known,<br>The charms and riddles that beguiled<br>On Oxus’ banks the young world’s child,—</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That primal picture-speech wherein<br>Have youth and maid the story told,<br>So new in each, so dateless old,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Recalling pastoral Ruth in her<br>Who waited, blushing and demure,<br>The red-ear’s kiss of forfeiture.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But still the sweetest voice was mute<br>That river-valley ever heard<br>From lips of maid or throat of bird;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For Mabel Martin sat apart,<br>And let the hay-mow’s shadow fall<br>Upon the loveliest face of all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She sat apart, as one forbid,<br>Who knew that none would condescend<br>To own the Witch-wife’s child a friend.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The seasons scarce had gone their round,<br>Since curious thousands thronged to see<br>Her mother at the gallows-tree;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And mocked the prison-palsied limbs<br>That faltered on the fatal stairs,<br>And wan lip trembling with its prayers!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Few questioned of the sorrowing child,<br>Or, when they saw the mother die;<br>Dreamed of the daughter’s agony.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They went up to their homes that day,<br>As men and Christians justified<br>God willed it, and the wretch had died!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dear God and Father of us all,<br>Forgive our faith in cruel lies,—<br>Forgive the blindness that denies!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Forgive thy creature when he takes,<br>For the all-perfect love Thou art,<br>Some grim creation of his heart.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cast down our idols, overturn<br>Our bloody altars; let us see<br>Thyself in Thy humanity!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Poor Mabel from her mother’s grave<br>Crept to her desolate hearth-stone,<br>And wrestled with her fate alone;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With love, and anger, and despair,<br>The phantoms of disordered sense,<br>The awful doubts of Providence!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The school-boys jeered her as they passed,<br>And, when she sought the house of prayer,<br>Her mother's curse pursued her there.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And still o'er many a neighboring door<br>She saw the horseshoe's curved charm,<br>To guard against her mother's harm; -</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That mother, poor, and sick, and lame,<br>Who daily, by the old arm-chair, <br>Folded her withered hands in prayer; -</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Who turned, in Salem's dreary jail,<br>Her worn old Bible o'er and o'er,<br>When her dim eyes could read no more!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sore tried and pained, the poor girl kept <br>Her faith, and trusted that her way, <br>So dark, would somewhere meet the day. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And still her weary wheel went round <br>Day after day, with no relief <br>Small leisure have the poor for grief. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So in the shadow Mabel sits; <br>Untouched by mirth she sees and hears, <br>Her smile is sadder than her tears. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But cruel eyes have found her out, <br>And cruel lips repeat her name, <br>And taunt her with her mother's shame. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">She answered not with railing words, <br>But drew her apron o'er her face, <br>And, sobbing, glided from the place. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And only pausing at the door, <br>Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze <br>Of one who, in her better days, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Had been her warm and steady friend, <br>Ere yet her mother's doom had made <br>Even Esek Harden half afraid. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He felt that mute appeal of tears, <br>And, starting, with an angry frown, <br>Hushed all the wicked murmurs down. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Good neighbors mine,' he sternly said, <br>'This passes harmless mirth or jest; <br>I brook no insult to my guest. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'She is indeed her mother's child; <br>But God's sweet pity ministers <br>Unto no whiter soul than hers. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Let Goody Martin rest in peace; <br>I never knew her harm a fly, <br>And witch or not, God knows - not I. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I know who swore her life away; <br>And as God lives, I'd not condemn <br>An Indian dog on word of them.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The broadest lands in all the town, <br>The skill to guide, the power to awe, <br>Were Harden's; and his word was law. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">None dared withstand him to his face, <br>But one sly maiden spake aside <br>'The little witch is evil-eyed! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Her mother only killed a cow, <br>Or witched a churn or dairy-pan; <br>But she, forsooth, must charm a man!' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Poor Mabel, in her lonely home,<br>Sat by the window's narrow pane,<br>White in the moonlight's silver rain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The river, on its pebbled rim,<br>Made music such as childhood knew;<br>The door-yard tree was whispered through</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By voices such as childhood's ear<br>Had heard in moonlights long ago;<br>And through the willow-boughs below.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She saw the rippled waters shine;<br>Beyond, in waves of shade and light,<br>The hills rolled off into the night.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She saw and heard, but over all<br>A sense of some transforming spell,<br>The shadow of her sick heart fell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And still across the wooded space<br>The harvest lights of Harden shone,<br>And song and jest and laugh went on.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And he, so gentle, true, and strong,<br>Of men the bravest and the best,<br>Had he, too, scorned her with the rest?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She strove to drown her sense of wrong,<br>And, in her old and simple way,<br>To teach her bitter heart to pray.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Poor child! the prayer, begun in faith,<br>Grew to a low, despairing cry<br>Of utter misery: 'Let me die!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Oh! take me from the scornful eyes,<br>And hide me where the cruel speech<br>And mocking finger may not reach!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I dare not breathe my mother's name<br>A daughter's right I dare not crave<br>To weep above her unblest grave!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Let me not live until my heart,<br>With few to pity, and with none<br>To love me, hardens into stone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'O God! have mercy on Thy child,<br>Whose faith in Thee grows weak and small,<br>And take me ere I lose it all!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A shadow on the moonlight fell,<br>And murmuring wind and wave became<br>A voice whose burden was her name.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Had then God heard her? Had He sent<br>His angel down? In flesh and blood,<br>Before her Esek Harden stood!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He laid his hand upon her arm<br>'Dear Mabel, this no more shall be;<br>Who scoffs at you must scoff at me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'You know rough Esek Harden well;<br>And if he seems no suitor gay,<br>And if his hair is touched with gray,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The maiden grown shall never find<br>His heart less warm than when she smiled,<br>Upon his knees, a little child!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her tears of grief were tears of joy,<br>As, folded in his strong embrace,<br>She looked in Esek Harden's face.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'O truest friend of all'' she said,<br>'God bless you for your kindly thought,<br>And make me worthy of my lot!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He led her through his dewy fields,<br>To where the swinging lanterns glowed,<br>And through the doors the huskers showed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Good friends and neighbors!' Esek said,<br>'I'm weary of this lonely life;<br>In Mabel see my chosen wife!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'She greets you kindly, one and all;<br>The past is past, and all offence<br>Falls harmless from her innocence.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Henceforth she stands no more alone;<br>You know what Esek Harden is: -<br>He brooks no wrong to him or his.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now let the merriest tales be told,<br>And let the sweetest songs be sung<br>That ever made the old heart young!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For now the lost has found a home;<br>And a lone hearth shall brighter burn,<br>As all the household joys return!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, pleasantly the harvest-moon,<br>Between the shadow of the mows,<br>Looked on them through the great elm-boughs!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">On Mabel's curls of golden hair,<br>On Esek's shaggy strength it fell;<br>And the wind whispered, 'It is well!'</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=420824" data-title="The Witch's Daughter de John Greenleaf Whittier" data-description="It was the pleasant harvest time,
When cellar-bins are closely stowed,
And garrets bend beneath their load,

And the old swallow-haunted barns -
Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams
Through which the moted sunlight streams,

And winds blow freshl..."></div>
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