The groans of women charged with witchcraft.
I see a lone, gray, haggard woman standing at bay,
Helpless against her grim, sin-darkened judges.
Terror blanches her lips and makes her confess
Bonds with demons that her heart knows not.
Satan sits by the judgment-seat and laughs.
The gray walls, broken, weatherworn oracles,
Sing that she was once a girl of love and laughter,
Then a fair mother with lullabies on her lips,
Caresses in her eyes, who spent her days
In weaving warmth to keep her brood against the winter cold.
And in her tongue was the law of kindness;
For her God was the Lord Jehovah.
Enemies uprose and swore her accused,
Laid at her door the writhing forms of little children,
And she could but answer: “The Evil One
Torments them in my shape.”
She stood amazed before the tribunal of her church
And heard the gate of God’s house closed against her.
Oh, shuddering silence of the throng,
And fearful the words spoken from the judgment-seat!
She raised her white head and clasped her wrinkled hands:
“Pity me, Lord, pity my anguish!
Nor, since Thou art a just and terrible God,
Forget to visit thy wrath upon these people;
For they have sworn away the life of Thy servant
Who hath lived long in the land keeping Thy commandments.
I am old, Lord, and betrayed;
By neighbor and kin am I betrayed;
A Judas kiss hath marked me for a witch.