108 HE^fRY KIEKE WHTTE's POEMS. 



And she said, the father in his arms 



He held his sickly son, 

 And his dying throes they fast arose, 



His pains were nearly done. 



And she throttled the youth with her sinewy hnnds 

 And his face grew deadly blue ; 



And the father he tore his thin gray hair, 

 And kiss'd the livid hue. 



And then she told, how she bored a hole 



In the bark, and it fi'l'd away ; 

 And 'twas rare to hear hoAv some did sv/ear, 



And some did vow, and pray. 



The man and woman they soon were dead, 

 The sailors their strength did urge ; 



But the billows that beat were their winding sheet, 

 And the winds sung their funeral dirge. 



She threw the infant's hair in the fire, 



The red tlame flamed high, 

 And round about the caldron stout 



They danced right merrily. 



The second begun : she said she had done 

 The task that Queen Hecat' had set he?, 



And that the devil, the father of evil, 

 Had never accomplish'd a better. 



She said there was an aged woman, 



And she had a daughter fair, 

 Whose evil habits fill'd her heart 



With misery and care. 



The daughter had a paramonr, 



A wicked man w^as he. 

 And oft the woman, him against, 



Did murmur grievously. 



