I've crossed the Psalter with Brady and Tate,
And laid the Primer above them all,
I've nailed a horseshoe over the grate,
And hung a wig to my parlor wall
Once worn by a learned Judge, they say,
At Salem court in the witchcraft day!
"Conjuro te, sceleratissime,
Abire ad tuum locum!"--still
Like a visible nightmare he sits by me,--
The exorcism has lost its skill;
And I hear again in my haunted room
The husky wheeze and the dolorous hum!
Ah! commend me to Mary Magdalen
With her sevenfold plagues, to the wandering Jew,
To the terrors which haunted Orestes when
The furies his midnight curtains drew,
But charm him off, ye who charm him can,
That reading demon, that fat old man!
1835.
THE FOUNTAIN.
On the declivity of a hill in Salisbury, Essex County, is a fountain of
clear water, gushing from the very roots of a venerable oak. It is about
two miles from the junction of the Powow River with the Merrimac.
TRAVELLER! on thy journey toiling
By the swift Powow,
With the summer sunshine falling
On thy heated brow,
Listen, while all else is still,
To the brooklet from the hill.
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