Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893.
Christus: A MysteryPart III. The New England Tragedies. Giles Corey of the Salem Farms. Act V.
S
The four tall poplar-trees before the door;
The house, the barn, the orchard, and the well,
With its moss-covered bucket and its trough;
The garden, with its hedge of currant-bushes;
The woods, the harvest-fields; and, far beyond,
The pleasant landscape stretching to the sea.
But everything is silent and deserted!
No bleat of flocks, no bellowing of herds,
No sound of flails, that should be beating now;
Nor man nor beast astir. What can this mean?
What ho! Giles Corey! Hillo-ho! Giles Corey!—
No answer but the echo from the barn,
And the ill-omened cawing of the crow,
That yonder wings his flight across the fields,
As if he scented carrion in the air.
What woman ’s this, that, like an apparition,
Haunts this deserted homestead in broad day?
Woman, who are you?
I am John Indian’s wife. I am a Witch.
Cinquefoil, and saxifrage, and pennyroyal.
This is not saxifrage, but hellebore!
This is not pennyroyal, it is henbane!
Do you come here to poison these good people?
Beware of Tituba. I pinch the children;
Make little poppets and stick pins in them,
And then the children cry out they are pricked.
The Black Dog came to me, and said, “Serve me!”
I was afraid. He made me hurt the children.
Where is Giles Corey? Do you know Giles Corey?
Down there in Salem Village. Both are Witches.
She came to me and whispered, “Kill the children!”
Both signed the Book!
You Devil’s dam!
When the waves thundered round me, and the wind
Bellowed, and beat the canvas, and my ship
Clove through the solid darkness, like a wedge,
I ’ve thought of him, upon his pleasant farm,
Living in quiet with his thrifty housewife,
And envied him, and wished his fate were mine!
And now I find him shipwrecked utterly,
Drifting upon this sea of sorceries,
And lost, perhaps, beyond all aid of man![Exit.
I give my worldly goods to my dear children;
My body I bequeath to my tormentors,
And my immortal soul to Him who made it.
O God! who in thy wisdom dost afflict me
With an affliction greater than most men
Have ever yet endured or shall endure,
Suffer me not in this last bitter hour
For any pains of death to fall from thee!
And disappoint my foes;
They are but thine avenging sword,
Whose wounds are swift to close.
She lives! I am not utterly forsaken!
And mercies multiplied,
I shall awake, and see thy face;
I shall be satisfied.
A friend of yours, who asks to speak with you.
You are the first, ay, and the only one,
That comes to seek me out in my disgrace!
And you but come in time to say farewell.
They ’ve dug my grave already in the field.
I thank you. There is something in your presence,
I know not what it is, that gives me strength.
Perhaps it is the bearing of a man
Familiar with all dangers of the deep,
Familiar with the cries of drowning men,
With fire, and wreck, and foundering ships at sea!
Would I could save you!
It is too late. I am resolved to die.
Your daughters, and—
My daughters have gone from me. They are married;
They have their homes, their thoughts, apart from me;
I will not say their hearts,—that were too cruel.
What would you have me do?
To lay a heavy weight upon my conscience
By telling me that I was driven forth
As an unworthy member of their church.
And have the weight of all the seas upon you.
Till this tornado of fanaticism
Blows itself out. Let me come in between you
And your severer self, with my plain sense;
Do not be obstinate.
If I deny, I am condemned already,
In courts where ghosts appear as witnesses,
And swear men’s lives away. If I confess,
Then I confess a lie, to buy a life
Which is not life, but only death in life.
I will not bear false witness against any,
Not even against myself, whom I count least.
You would not do yourself. I have already
The bitter taste of death upon my lips;
I feel the pressure of the heavy weight
That will crush out my life within this hour;
But if a word could save me, and that word
Were not the Truth; nay, if it did but swerve
A hair’s-breadth from the Truth, I would not say it!
Whose virtues, like the stars, unseen by day,
Though numberless, do but await the dark
To manifest themselves unto all eyes,—
She who first won me from my evil ways,
And taught me how to live by her example,
By her example teaches me to die,
And leads me onward to the better life!
Here is my body; ye may torture it,
But the immortal soul ye cannot crush![Exeunt.
Come here; come up this lane.
If the old man will die, and will not speak?
He ’s obstinate enough and tough enough
For anything on earth.
Of those who deal in Witchcrafts, and, when questioned,
Refuse to plead their guilt or innocence,
And stubbornly drag death upon themselves.
Spangled with Churches Evangelical,
Inwrapped in our salvations, must we seek
In mouldering statute-books of English Courts
Some old forgotten Law, to do such deeds?
Those who lie buried in the Potter’s Field
Will rise again, as surely as ourselves
That sleep in honored graves with epitaphs;
And this poor man, whom we have made a victim,
Hereafter will be counted as a martyr!