By good luck the whimsical belief of fairies and goblins could furnish no pretences for torturing our fellow-creatures, and therefore we have this handed down to us pure and unsophisticated.
I have been all day looking after A raven feeding upon a quarter; And, soone as she turn'd her beak to the south, I snatch'd this morsell out of her mouth.
I have beene gathering wolves haires, 5 The madd dogges foames, and adders eares; The spurging of a deadmans eyes: And all since the evening starre did rise.
I last night lay all alone O' the ground, to heare the mandrake grone; 10 And pluckt him up, though he grew full low: And, as I had done, the cocke did crow.
And I ha' beene chusing out this scull From charnell houses that were full; From private grots, and publike pits; 15 And frighted a sexton out of his wits.
Under a cradle I did crepe By day; and, when the childe was a-sleepe At night, I suck'd the breath; and rose, And pluck'd the nodding nurse by the nose. 20
I had a dagger: what did I with that? Killed an infant to have his fat. A piper it got at a church-ale,[412] I bade him again blow wind i' the taile.
A murderer, yonder, was hung in chaines; 25 The sunne and the wind had shrunke his veines: I bit off a sinew; I clipp'd his haire; I brought off his ragges, that danc'd i' the ayre.
The scrich-owles egges and the feathers blacke, The bloud of the frogge, and the bone in his backe 30 I have been getting; and made of his skin A purset, to keep sir Cranion[413] in.
And I ha' beene plucking (plants among) Hemlock, henbane, adders-tongue, Night-shade, moone-wort, libbards-bane[414]; 35 And twise by the dogges was like to be tane.
I from the jawes of a gardiner's bitch Did snatch these bones, and then leap'd the ditch: Yet went I back to the house againe, Kill'd the blacke cat, and here is the braine. 40
I went to the toad, breedes under the wall, I charmed him out, and he came at my call; I scratch'd out the eyes of the owle before; I tore the batts wing: what would you have more?
Yes: I have brought, to helpe your vows, 45 Horned poppie, cypresse boughes, The fig-tree wild, that growes on tombes, And juice, that from the larch-tree comes, The basiliskes bloud, and the viper's skin: And now our orgies let's begin. 50