The Witches' Song by Ben Jonson

1 WITCH.

"I HAVE been all day looking after
A raven feeding upon a quarter:
And, soone as she turn'd her beak to the south,
I snatch'd this morsell out of her mouth."

2 WITCH.

"I have beene gathering wolves haires,
The madd dogges foames, and adders eares;
The spurging of a dead man's eyes:
And all since the evening starre did rise."

3 WITCH.

"I last night lay all alone
O' the ground, to heare the mandrake grone;
And pluckt him up, though he grew full low:
And, as I had done, the cocke did crow."

4 WITCH.

"And I ha' beene chusing out this scull
From charnell houses that were full;
From private grots, and publike pits:
And frighted a sexton out of his wits."

5 WITCH.

"Under a cradle I did crepe
By day; and, when the childe was a-sleepe
At night, I suck'd the breath; and rose,
And pluck'd the nodding nurse by the nose.

6 WITCH.

"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 taile."

7 WITCH.

"A murderer yonder was hung in chaines;
The sunne and the wind had shrunke his veins:
I bit off a sinew; I clipp'd his haire;
I brought off his ragges, that danc'd i' the ayre."

8 WITCH.

"The scrich-owles egges and the feathers blacke,
The bloud of the frogge, and the bone in his backe
I have been getting; and made of his skin
A purset, to keepe Sir Cranion in."

9 WITCH.

"And I ha' beene plucking (plants among)
Hemlock, henbane, adders-tongue,
Night-shade, moone-wort, libbards-bane;
And twise by the dogges was like to be tane."

10 WITCH.

"I from the jaw's of a gardiner's bitch
Did snatch these bones, and then leap'd the ditch:
Yet went I back to the house againe,
Kill'd the blacke cat, and here is the braine."

11 WITCH.

"I went to the toad, breedes under the wall,
I charmed him out, and he came at my call;
I scratch'd out the eyes of the owle before;
I tore the batts wing: what would you have more?"

DAME.

"Yes: I have brought, to helpe your vows,
Horned poppie, cypresse boughes,
The fig-tree wild, that grows on tombes,
And juice, that from the larch-tree comes,
The basiliskes bloud, and the vipers skin:--
And now our orgies let's begin."

Taken from Percy's Reliques