And waste the body--and addle the eggs -
And give a baby bandy legs;
Though in common belief a Witch's curse
Involves all these horrible things and worse -
As ignorant bumpkins all profess,
No bumpkin makes a poke the less
At the back or ribs of old Eleanor S.!
As if she were only a sack of barley!
Or gives her credit for greater might
Than the Powers of Darkness confer at night
On that other old woman, the parish Charley!

Ay, now's the time for a Witch to call
On her imps and sucklings one and all -
Newes, Pyewacket, or Peck in the Crown,
(As Matthew Hopkins has handed them down)
Dick, and Willet, and Sugar-and-Sack,
Greedy Grizel, Jarmara the Black,
Vinegar Tom, and the rest of the pack -
Ay, now's the nick for her friend Old Harry
To come "with his tail," like the bold Glengarry,
And drive her foes from their savage job
As a mad black bullock would scatter a mob:-
But no such matter is down in the bond;
And spite of her cries that never cease,
But scare the ducks and astonish the geese,
The dame is dragged to the fatal pond!

And now they come to the water's brim -
And in they bundle her--sink or swim;