Poems (Mary Coleridge)/Poem 64

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LXIV THE WITCHES' WOOD
There was a wood, a witches' wood, All the trees therein were pale.They bore no branches green and good, But as it were a gray nun's veil.
They talked and chattered in the wind From morning dawn to set of sun,Like men and women that have sinned, Whose thousand evil tongues are one.
Their roots were like the hands of men, Grown hard and brown with clutching gold.Their foliage women's tresses when The hair is withered, thin, and old.
There never did a sweet bird sing For happy love about his nest.The clustered bats on evil wing Each hollow trunk and bough possessed.
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And in the midst a pool there lay Of water white, as tho' a scareHad frightened off the eye of day And kept the Moon reflected there.

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