Classic Poem

hag:What our Dame bids us do
We are ready for.

dame:Then fall to.
But first relate me what you have sought,
Where you have been, and what you have brought.
1st hag: I have been all day looking after
A raven feeding upon a quarter,
And soon as she turned her beak to the south,
I snatched this morsel out of her mouth.
2nd hag: I have been gathering wolves' hairs,
The mad dogs' foam and the adders' ears,
The spurging of a dead man's eyes,
And all since the evening star did rise.
3rd hag: I last night lay all alone
O' the ground to hear the mandrake groan,
And plucked him up, though he grew full low,
And as I had done, the cock did crow.
4th hag: And I ha' been choosing out this skull
From charnel houses that were full,
From private grots and public pits,
And frightened a sexton out of his wits.
5th hag: Under a cradle I did creep
By day, and when the child was asleep
At night I sucked the breath, and rose
And plucked the nodding nurse by the nose.
6th hag: I had a dagger: what did I with that?
Killed an infant to have his fat.
A piper it got at a church-ale,
I bade him again blow wind i' the tail.
7th hag: A murderer yonder was hung in chains,
The sun and the wind had shrunk his veins;
I bit off a sinew, I clipped his hair,
I brought off his rags that danced i' the air.
8th hag: The scritch-owl's eggs and the feathers black
The blood of the frog and the bone in his back
I have been getting, and made of his skin
A purset to keep Sir Cranion in.
9th hag: And I ha' been plucking, plants among,
Hemlock, henbane, adder's tongue,
Nightshade, moonwort, libbard's bane,
And twice by the dogs was like to be ta'en.
10th hag: I from the jaws of a gardener's bitch
Did snatch these bones, and then leaped the ditch;
Yet went I back to the house again,
Killed the black cat, and here's the brain.
11th hag: I went to the toad breeds under the wall,
I charmed him out and he came at my call;
I scratched out the eyes of the owl before,
I tore the bat's wing; what would you have more?
dame: Yes, I have brought, to help our vows,
Horned poppy, cypress boughs,
The fig-tree wild that grows on tombs,
And juice that from the larch tree comes,
The basilisk's blood and the viper's skin:
And now, our orgies let's begin. . . .