Pot Macabre

“Press out an opiate juice

From berries culled in prick of June-time heat;

Pound nettles in a cruse

Of crimson sard till mixing is complete;

And strain the brew through bags of sarcenet,

Mumbling the runes that crazed Sir Dagonet.”

So spoke the slobbering witch,

Wagging her shaky head incessantly;

Then, with an agile twitch

Stove oddly crackling through the briery.

I caught the swish of her broomstick up to the moon,

And her tattered skirt afloat like a black balloon.

Old Witch, whither art gone?

Hopped off to the well like Chick-o’-my-Craney-Crow?

Here’s work for thy dudgeon,

A brew and a bake for a devilish calico!

What’s but a kettle ready for mad ferment,

Black mouth a-grin at me, the innocent!

I pressed and pounded duly,

And sat to watch the slop at bubble slow;

Fed coals with knots unruly

Of thornbush boles till pot-legs stood aglow.

And thrice the pot gave forth a piggish grunt,

And thrice a bellowing as of hounds on hunt.

A great red swine sprang out,

With bristling gleams as bright as Freyr’s boar;

Then, at his grubbing snout,

Two black dogs leaped, two white-fanged lusts for gore.

They three made hideous noise through brush and dew—

Trembling I stooped and strained the mulling brew.

And there was born a girl

Within a sudden mist wizardry,

And came some faint pipes’ thirl,

While she danced, with lips turned sly, and beckoned me,

And we danced mad till night’s low-burning wick

Snuffed out, hearing like us the Old Hag’s stick.