This eBook was produced by David Widger
Susanna Martin, an aged woman of Amesbury, Mass., was tried and executedfor the alleged crime of witchcraft. Her home was in what is now knownas Pleasant Valley on the Merrimac, a little above the old Ferry way,where, tradition says, an attempt was made to assassinate Sir EdmundAndros on his way to Falmouth (afterward Portland) and Pemaquid, whichwas frustrated by a warning timely given. Goody Martin was the onlywoman hanged on the north side of the Merrimac during the dreadfuldelusion. The aged wife of Judge Bradbury who lived on the other side ofthe Powow River was imprisoned and would have been put to death but forthe collapse of the hideous persecution.
The substance of the poem which follows was published under the name ofThe Witch's Daughter, in The National Era in 1857. In 1875 my publishersdesired to issue it with illustrations, and I then enlarged it andotherwise altered it to its present form. The principal addition was inthe verses which constitute Part I.
PROEM.
I CALL the old time back: I bring my lay
in tender memory of the summer day
When, where our native river lapsed away,
We dreamed it over, while the thrushes made
Songs of their own, and the great pine-trees laid
On warm noonlights the masses of their shade.
And she was with us, living o'er again
Her life in ours, despite of years and pain,—
The Autumn's brightness after latter rain.
Beautiful in her holy peace as one
Who stands, at evening, when the work is done,
Glorified in the setting of the sun!
Her memory makes our common landscape seem
Fairer than any of which painters dream;
Lights the brown hills and sings in every stream;
For she whose speech was always truth's pure gold
Heard, not unpleased, its simple legends told,
And loved with us the beautiful and old.
I. THE RIVER VALLEY.
Across the level tableland,
A grassy, rarely trodden way,
With thinnest skirt of birchen spray
And stunted growth of cedar, leads
To where you see the dull plain fall
Sheer off, steep-slanted, ploughed by all
The seasons' rainfalls. On its brink
The over-leaning harebells swing,
With roots half bare the pine-trees cling;
And, through the shadow looking west,
You see the wavering river flow
Along a vale, that far below
Holds to the sun, the sheltering hills
And glimmering water-line between,
Broad fields of corn and meadows green,
And fruit-bent orchards grouped around
The low brown roofs and painted eaves,
And chimney-tops half hid in leaves.