BROOMSTICK TRAIN;
OR RETURN OF THE WITCHES
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
[Used by special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of the writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes.]
I.
The witches are here! They've all come back
They hanged them high, but they wouldn't lie still,
For cats and witches are hard to kill;
They buried them deep but they wouldn't die,—
Books say they did, but they lie! they lie!
II.
They had knocked about in the world below,
When an Essex deacon dropped in to call,
And a homesick feeling seized them all ;
For he came from a place they knew full well,
And many a tale he had to tell.
They longed to visit the haunts of men,
To see the old dwellings they knew again,
On their well-trained broomsticks mounted high.
Seen like shadows against the sky;
Crossing the tracks of owls and bats,
Hugging before them their coal-black cats.
III.
The sights we see in our daily drives:
