The Project Gutenberg eBook of Witch-Burning

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Title: Witch-Burning

Author: Mary Elizabeth Counselman


Release date: May 23, 2010 [eBook #32493]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32493

Credits: Produced by Greg Weeks, Jana Srna and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITCH-BURNING *** 




Transcriber's Note:


This e-text was produced from Weird Tales October 1936.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed.




 


Witch-Burning


By MARY ELIZABETH COUNSELMAN





They burned a witch in Bingham Square

Last Friday afternoon.

The faggot-smoke was blacker than

The shadows on the moon;

The licking flames were strangely green

Like fox-fire on the fen ...

And she who cursed the godly folk

Will never curse again.




They burned a witch in Bingham Square

Before the village gate.

A huswife raised a skinny hand

To damn her, tense with hate.

A huckster threw a jagged stone—

Her pallid cheek ran red ...

But there was something scornful in

The way she held her head.




They burned a witch in Bingham Square;

Her eyes were terror-wild.

She was a slight, a comely maid,

No taller than a child.

They bound her fast against the stake

And laughed to see her fear ...

Her red lips muttered secret words

That no one dared to hear.




They burned a witch in Bingham Square—

But ere she swooned with pain

And ere her bones were sodden ash

Beneath the sudden rain,

She set her mark upon that throng ...

For time can not erase

The echo of her anguished cries,

The memory of her face.