The Wise-Woman
This is the house. Lift up the latch—
Faugh, the smoke and the smell!
A broken bench, some rags that catch
The drip of the rain from the broken thatch—
Are these the wages of Hell ?
The witch—who wonders?—is bent with cramp.
Satan himself cannot cure her,
For the beaten floor is oozing damp,
And the moon, through the roof, might serve for a lamp.
Only a rushlight's surer.
And here some night she will die alone,
When the cramp clutches tight at her heart.
Let her cry in her anguish, and sob, and moan.
The tenderest woman the village has known
Would shudder—but keep apart.
May she die in her bed! A likelier chance
Were the dog's death, drowned in the pond.
The witch when she passes it looks askance:
They ducked her once, when the horse bit Nance;
She remembers, and looks beyond.
For then she had perished in very truth.
But the Squire's son, home from college.
Rushed to the rescue, himself forsooth
Plunged after the witch.—Yes, I like the youth
For all his new-fangled knowledge.—
How he stormed at the cowards! What a rage
Heroic flashed in his eyes!
But many a struggle and many an age
Must pass ere the same broad heritage
Be given the fools and the wise.
"Cowards!" he cried. He was lord of the land
He was mighty to them, and rich.
They let him rant ; but on either hand
They shrank from the devil's unseen brand
On the sallow face of the witch.
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