“Ye spoilers of the harvest, unlicked whelps!”
Taven exclaimed. “Must we then use such helps
To the fair deeds we do? Yet, as by skill
The sage physician bringeth good from ill,
We witches, by our hidden arts, compel
Evil to yield its fruit of good as well.
“Naught’s hid from us. For where the vulgar see
A stone, a whip, a stag, a malady,
We witches can the inner force divine
Like that which works under the scum of wine
In fermentation. Pierce the vat, you know,
A seething, boiling scum will outward flow.
“Find, if you can, the key of Solomon!
Or speak unto the mountain in its own
Dread language! It shall move at your behest,
And roll into the valley ere it rest.”
Meanwhile they wended lower, and were ’ware
Of a small, roguish voice a-piping there,
Most like a goldfinch: “Our good granny spins,
And winds and spins, and then anew begins,
And thinks that she spins worsted night and day,
And ha! ha! gossip, she spins only hay!
Te! he! spin, Aunty, spin!” And long-drawn laughter,
Like whinnying of young colts, followed thereafter.
“Why, what can that be?” asked Mirèio,—
“The little voice that laughs and jeers us so?”
Again the childish treble came, “Te! he!
Who is this pretty mortal? Let us see!
We’ll raise the neckerchief a little bit:
Are nuts and pomegranates under it?”
Then the poor maid had nearly cried outright;
But the hag stayed her, “Here’s no cause for fright.
The singing, jeering thing is but a Glari:
Fantasti is his name, a sprightly fairy.
In his good mood he will your kitchen sweep,
Mind fire, turn roast, and a full hen’s-nest keep.
“But what a marplot when he takes the whim!
He’ll salt your broth just as it pleaseth him,
Or blow your light out ere you’re half in bed!
Or, if to vespers you would go,” she said,
“At Saint Trophime, in all your best bedight,
He’ll hide your Sunday suit, or spoil it quite!”
“Hear!” shrieked the imp: “now hear the old hag talk!
’Tis like the creak of an ill-greasèd block!
No doubt, my withered olive,” the thing said,
“I twitch the bedclothes off a sleeping maid
Sometimes at midnight, and she starts with fear
And trembles, and her breast heaves. Oh, I see her!”
And with its whinnying laugh the sprite was gone;
Then, for a brief space, as they journeyed on
Under the grots, the witcheries were stayed;
And in the gloomy silence, long delayed,
They heard the water drop from vaulted roof
To crystal ground. Now there had sat aloof,
Upon a ledge of rock, a tall, white thing,
Which rose in the half-light as menacing
With one long arm. Then stiff as a quartz rock
Stood Vincen; while, transported by the shock,
Mirèio would have leaped a precipice,
Had such been there. “Old scare-crow, what is this?