Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
The Witch of York
By George Washington Wright Houghton (1850–1891)U
There stole a weird form, bent but tall;
And softly through our unlatched door
She crept unbidden, and before
The hearth-fire crouching, gazed upon us all.
The cat mewed drearily and tried
To go but could not; close and dim
The room became, and ghastly grim
The ghosts that fell on us and multiplied.
We heard them twist from the trellised vines
The bean-blows; and the scowling west
Sent up a growl of hoarse unrest,
As of some hungry beast that frets and whines.
Weird doubts and fancies stormed the mind,
And doubt is fear, and what is fear
But anguish!—“Say! what lurketh near?
Shall our to-morrow cruel prove, or kind?”
Her fate-pack; moodily she blew
And deftly shuffled black with red;
Till Esther gaped and whispering said
To Robert, “One would think she thought she knew.”
First sparkled, then grew black as pitch;
We shivered at her evil look,
Her ear-rings in the glamour shook,
And we could see her neck-cords writhe and twitch.
In black disorder; on the shed
We watched the sunshine, charging, beat
Them back, then struggle and retreat:
“Come, woman, come! ’twill soon be time for bed!”
It into three; then Robert spoke:
“Tell, mother, this my sister’s fate.”
The woman only muttered, “Wait!”
And silent, fanned the embers into smoke.
She looked upon it long and hard,
Then peering through her grisly brow
Glared upward at the girl—“Now, now,
Will I unlock my lips; mind you each card!
A spade twice next: both parents dead;
Black tenners twice in turn—beware!
Though comely shaped, thy features fair,
Thy feet in snares I see, webs round thy head.
Aha! queen clover, treacherous then!
Well may thy pouting mouth turn pale,
Within a deuce, beneath swollen sail
Thou fliest from some sorrow or some sin.
Within a trés behold thy stain
A smoke to blur and blind the skies,
A fire kindled, that thine eyes
May quench not though they should dissolve as rain.
A coffin; now third deal, and done.
Hearts six, and dabbled o’er with red:
Within that space thy wooer dead;
Spades seven: to thee are left seven years to run.”
But flung the cards across the floor,
And up the yawning chimney’s throat,
With wind-rush and one thunder note,
She swept.—We looked, and saw the buttoned door.
Then late, the storm’s long-looked-for brawl;
And louder, shriller than the last,
Up through the cavernous flue one blast
Sucked flame and fuel, cat and cards,—and all!