Poems (Forrest)/The burning

by Mabel Forrest

THE BURNING

I have done well. . . .
I taste God at the altar. I have foiled
The malice of the witch. Have cast her forth
From tranquil hearths of magic-fearing men,
And from the woodland walks where she would pass
Sometimes as moonlight on a sanded path
Sometimes a flying hare amid the stooks,
And now within the chapel walls I kneel
For God's approval, for I have done well. . .

We heaped her pyre with faggots from the wood,
Dry bracken in the pile to make it blaze;
Old logs of yew, and splinters from the oak—
Resin of pine and crackle of the larch.
. . . We bound her hands—they were not hard to bind,
For she was just a girl with little wrists—
And great Madonna eyes . . . Part of her crime
That she should look like Mary! Her small breasts
Glimmered among her rags. Not modestly
Was she attired . . . but the flames covered her. . .

And yet . . . between the flames I saw her eyes. . .
'Twas I who raised the hue and cry, and drave
Her down towards the sobbing Northern sea;
And when she did not sink, that was the help
She had from Satan . . . who her father is. . . .
. . . I have done well, I pattered many prayers
. . . A bede-role^[1] of good deeds . . . and this was one. . .

The dying sun shines thro' the coloured glass,
Matthew and Mark and John are pictured there.
. . . Within my mouth God's wine tastes salt of tears
Upon my tongue God's wafer chokes with dust . . .

And still between the flames I see her eyes. . .

1. Bede-role (old English word for rosary)