Classic Poem

A WITCHCRAFT CASE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Once, upon the spring of day
On the summer side of May,
Good men faring forth to toil,
Ere the sun had warmed the soil,
Found an old crone, withered, worn,
Sitting by a field of corn.

There amid the springing green
Of the young blades she was seen
Bending an attentive head
To the new year's make of bread.
And wherever wheat stood high,
Testing it with careful eye
And brown fingers, lean and long,
Thus she crooned her wheat-ear song:

" When the corn turns withershins,
Short's the yield which there begins;
But when sun-gates bends the blee
Plenty shall the reaping be.
Only withershins be here:
Folk will starve and bread be dear! "

So, with old eyes on the young
Blades of corn, she sat and sung.
And those good men, passing near,
Heard her song and shook for fear:
And, the better to win ease,
Haled her to the justices, —
All because on that May morn,
Weatherwise, she sang the corn!

So, for singing of that same,
Charged and tried, she went to flame.
And, to prove them right, that year
People starved, and bread was dear!

Oh, full many an English field
Have I walked, and watched the yield —
Starved and stunted, because still
" Withershins " is how men will:
'Gainst the light they sin and sin,
Turning to the dark within
(Each so set to have his way)
From the wholesome light of day!

And above the cornfield bends
An old crone, whose peaceful ends
Men must still traduce. Her ghost,
Wasted lives, and harvests lost,
Mark upon the fields of Time
How continuous a crime
Is the justice man has done
" Withershins " — against the sun!