If her skin it is wrinkled--ah, God forefend her!
The wild lapping flame will soon make it shrink;
If her eyes are dim and rheumy and tender,
The adder-tongued flames will soon make her wink.
If brown now her breasts--once globes of beauty!
The roasting will char them into a black heap;
If trembling her limbs, the prickers' loved duty
Will be to compel her to dance and to leap.
The harlequin Man has doffed his jacket,
No pity to feel--he has none to give;
The Bible has said it, and so thou must take it,
"Thou shalt not allow a witch to live."



IV.


On the long red sands of old Dundee,
Out at the hem of the ebbing sea,
They have fixed a long pole deep in the sand,
And around it have piled with deftly hand
The rosined staves of the Noraway wood,
Four feet high and four feet broad,
To burn, amidst flames of burning pitch,
So rare a chimera yclept a witch--
Born of a fancy wild and camstary,
Like ghost or ghoul, brownie or fairy.
The prickers are there, each with long-pronged fork,
Yearning and yape for their hellish work,