Lo! the pole breaks over with creaking crash,
The body falls down in the flaming mass;
Up a cloud of sparks with a flesh-burnt smell
Rises and swirls like vomit of hell.

[Footnote A: There is in the records of the town the account of
the expenses attending the execution, and the sums in Scots
money paid for the tar barrels, and for prickers' fees, etc.]



VII.


There's a ship in the Tay on the rising tide--
She has come that day from a distant land;
The captain stands there the helm beside,
A telescope holding in his left hand.
"What, ho! my lads," he loudly exclaims,
"Yonder's a fire on the hem of the sea--
It is some good ship that is there in flames:
Good faith! and it blazes right merrily."
And there is a boat comes from the pier,
And it comes and comes still nigher and nigher--
"What is the ship that is burning there?"
"No ship, sir, it is that is yonder on fire,
But a pile of burning barrels of pitch,
On which all, amidst a deafening cheer,
They are burning an old woman for a witch;
_And the woman she is thy mother dear_."