POETRY
THREE POOR WITCHES
WHIRRING, walking
On the tree top, Three poor witches Mow and mop.
Three poor witches Fly on switches Of a broom From their cottage room.
Like goats'-beard rivers
Black and lean Are Moll and Meg And Myrrhaline, Of those whirring witches, Meg" (Bird-voiced fire screams) " Has one leg ; Moll has two, on tree-tops see- Goat-foot Myrrhaline has three !".
When she walks, Turned to a wreath Is every hedge ; She walks beneath Flowered trees like water Splashing down ; Her rich and dark silk Plumcake gown Has folds so stiff It stands alone Within the fields When she is gone.
And when she walks Upon the ground You'd never know How she can bound Upon the tree-tops, for she creeps With a snail's slow silver pace ; Her milky silky wrinkled face Shows no sign of her disgrace.
But walking on each Leafy tree-top,- Those old witches, See them hop !
Across the blue-leaved Mulberry tree Of the rusting Bunched sea, To China, thick trees whence there floats From wrens' and finches' feathered throats Songs. The North Pole is a tree
With thickest chestnut flowers. . . . We see.
Them whizz and turn Through Lisbon, churn The butter-pats to coins gold, Sheeps' milk to muslin thin and cold.---4.
Then one on one leg, one on two, One on three legs, home they flew To their cottage ; there one sees And hears no sound but wind in trees ; One candle spills out thick gold. coins Where quilted dark with tree-shade joins.
EDITH SITirEtt.
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