Tam saw an unco sight! Warlocks and witches in a dance; Nae cotillon brent new frae France, But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, Put life an mettle in their heels. A winnock bunker in the east, There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast; A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, To gie them music was his charge: He screw’d the pipes and gart them skirl, Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl.-- Coffins stood round like open presses, That shaw’d the dead in their last dresses; And by some devilish cantraip slight, Each in its cauld hand held a light,-- By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table, A murderer’s banes in gibbet airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen’d bairns; A thief, new cutted frae a rape, Wi’ his last gasp his gab did gape; Five tomahawks, wi’ bluid red-rusted; Five scimiters, wi’ murder crusted; A garter, which a babe had strangled; A knife, a father’s throat had mangled, Whom his ain son o’ life bereft, The gray hairs yet stack to the heft; Wi’ mair o’ horrible and awfu’, Which ev’n to name wad be unlawfu’. _Burns._ VERVAIN.... _Enchantment_. Vervain was employed by the ancients in various kinds of divinations. They ascribed to it a thousand properties, and, among others, that of reconciling enemies. Whenever the Romans sent their heralds to offer peace or war to nations, one of them always carried a sprig of Vervain. The Druids, both in Gaul and Britain, regarded the Vervain with the same veneration as the misletoe, and offered sacrifices to the earth before they cut this plant in spring, which was a ceremony of great pomp. Though the Druids and their religion have passed away, the Vervain is still the plant of spells and enchantment. In the northern provinces of France, the shepherds gather it with ceremonies and words known only to themselves, and express its juices under certain phases of the moon. They insist that this plant enables them to cure their ailments, and to cast a spell on their daughters and cattle, by which they can make them conform to their wishes. * * * * * I’d wake the spell that sleeps within an herb, And witch the lady till I know she’s mine. _Peerbold._ * * * * * Her overpowering presence made you feel It would not be idolatry to kneel. _Byron._ * * * * * Her sacred beauty hath enchanted heaven, And, had she lived before the siege of Troy, Helen, whose beauty summoned Greece to arms, And drew a thousand ships to Tenedos, Had not been named in Homer’s Iliad; Her name had been in every line he wrote. _Marlowe._ * * * * *