Alas! to think how people’s creeds Are contradicted by people’s deeds! But though the wishes that Witches utter Can play the most diabolical rigs-- Send styes in the eye--and measle the pigs-- Grease horses’ heels--and spoil the butter; Smut and mildew the corn on the stalk-- And turn new milk to water and chalk,-- Blight apples--and give the chickens the pip-- And cramp the stomach--and cripple the hip-- 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 dragg’d to the fatal pond! And now they come to the water’s brim-- And in they bundle her--sink or swim; Though it’s twenty to one that the wretch must drown, With twenty sticks to hold her down; Including the help to the self-same end, Which a travelling Pedlar stops to lend. A Pedlar!--Yes!--The same!--the same! Who sold the Horn to the drowning Dame! And now is foremost amid the stir, With a token only reveal’d to her; A token that makes her shudder and shriek, And point with her finger, and strive to speak-- But before she can utter the name of the Devil, Her head is under the water level! MORAL. There are folks about town--to name no names-- Who much resemble that deafest of Dames! And over their tea, and muffins, and crumpets, Circulate many a scandalous word, And whisper tales they could only have heard Through some such Diabolical Trumpets! AN OPEN QUESTION. “It is the king’s highway, that we are in, and in this way it is that thou hast placed the lions.”--BUNYAN.