The roadside forests here and there were touched with tawny gold; The days were shortening, and at dusk the sea looked blue and cold; Through his long fields the minister paced, restless, up and down; Before, the land-locked harbor lay; behind, the little town. No careless chant of harvester or fisherman awoke The silent air; no clanging hoof, no curling weft of smoke, Where late the blacksmith's anvil rang; all dumb as death,--and why? Why? echoed back the minister's chilled heart, for sole reply. His wife was watching from the door; she came to meet him now A weary sadness in her voice, a care upon her brow. A vague, oppressive mystery, a hint of unknown fear, Hung hovering over every roof: it was the witchcraft year. She laid her hand upon his arm, and looked into his face, And as he turned away she turned, beside him keeping pace: And, "Oh, my husband, let me speak!" said gentle Mistress Hale, "For truth is fallen in the street, and falsehoods vile prevail. "The very air we breathe is thick with whisperings of hell; The foolish trust the quaking bog, where wise men sink as well, Who follow them: O husband mine, for love of me, beware Of touching slime that from the pit is oozing everywhere! "The rulers and the ministers, tell me, what have they done, Through all the dreadful weeks since this dark inquest was begun, Save to encourage thoughtless girls in their unhallowed ways, And bring to an untimely end many a good woman's days? "Think of our neighbor, Goodwife Hoar; because she would not say She was in league with evil powers, she pines in jail to-day. Think of our trusty field-hand, Job,--a swaggerer, it is true,-- Boasting he feared no Devil, they have condemned him, too. "And Bridget Bishop, when she lived yonder at Ryal-side, What if she kept a shovel-board, and trimmed with laces wide Her scarlet bodice: grant she was too frivolous and vain; How dared they take away the life they could not give again? "Nor soberness availeth aught; for who hath suffered worse, Through persecutions undeserved, than good Rebecca Nurse? Forsaken of her kith and kin, alone in her despair, It almost seemed as if God's ear were closed against her prayer. "They spare not even infancy: poor little Dorcas Good, The vagrant's child--but four years old!--who says that baby could To Satan sign her soul away condemns this business blind, As but the senseless babbling of a weak and wicked mind. "Is it not like the ancient tale they tell of Phaeton, Whose ignorant hands were trusted with the horses of the sun? Our teachers now by witless youths are led on and beguiled: Woe to the land, the Scripture saith, whose ruler is a child!