rthy archers of the wilderness,
The red men to whom Nature opened all her secrets,
Who knew the haunts of bird and fish,
The hidden virtue of herb and root;
All the travail of man and beast they knew--
Birth and death, heat and cold,
Hunger and thirst, love and hate;
For these are the unchanging things writ in the imperishable book of
life
That man suckled at the breast of woman must know.

In the dim sanctuary of the pines
The winds murmur their mysteries through dusky aisles--
Secrets of earth's renewal and the endless cycle of life.
Living things are afoot among the grasses;
The closed fingers of the ferns unfold,
New bees explore new flowers, and the brook
Pours virgin waters from the rushing founts of May.
In the old walls there are sinister voices--
The groans of women charged with witchcraft.
I see a lone, gray, haggard woman standing at bay,
Helpless against her grim, sin-darkened judges.
Terror blanches her lips and makes her confess
Bonds with demons that her heart knows not.
Satan sits by the judgment-seat and laughs.
The gray walls, broken, weatherworn oracles,
Sing that she was once a girl of love and laughter,
Then a fair mother with lullabies on her lips,
Caresses in her eyes, who spent her days
In weaving warmth to keep her brood against the winter cold.
And in her tongue was the law of kindness;
For her God was the Lord Jehovah.
Enemies uprose and swore her accused,
Laid at her door the writhing forms of little children,
And she could but answer: "The Evil One
Torments them in my shape."
She stood amazed before the tribunal of her church
And heard the gate of God's house closed against her.
Oh, shuddering silence of the throng,
And fearful the words spoken from the judgment-seat!
She raised her white head and clasped her wrinkled hands:
"Pity me, Lord, pity my anguish!
Nor, since Thou art a just and terrible God,
Forget to visit thy wrath upon these people;
For they have sworn away the life of Thy servant
Who hath lived long in the land keeping Thy commandments.
I am old, Lord, and betrayed;
By neighbor and kin am I betrayed;
A Judas kiss hath marked me for a witch.
Possessed of a devil? Here be a legion of devils!
Smite them, O God, yea, utterly destroy them that persecute the innocent."
Before this mother in Israel the judges cowered;
But still they suffered her to die.
Through the tragic, guilty walls I hear the sighs
Of desolate women and penitent, remorseful men.

Sing of happi