Monday 31 October 2016

Poetry Revisited: The Hag by Robert Herrick

The Hag

(from Hesperides: 1648)

     The Hag is astride,
     This night for to ride;
The Devill and shee together:
     Through thick, and through thin,
     Now out, and then in,
Though ne’r so foule be the weather.

     A Thorn or a Burr
     She takes for a Spurre:
With a lash of a Bramble she rides now,
     Through Brakes and through Bryars,
     O’re Ditches, and Mires,
She followes the Spirit that guides now.

     No Beast, for his food,
     Dares now range the wood;
But husht in his laire he lies lurking:
     While mischiefs, by these,
     On Land and on Seas,
At noone of Night are working,

     The storme will arise,
     And trouble the skies;
This night, and more for the wonder,
     The ghost from the Tomb
     Affrighted shall come,
Cal’d out by the clap of the Thunder.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
English lyric poet and cleric

2 comments:

  1. Great poem for Halloween! To bring out our inner hag. I recently read Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood's retelling of The Tempest. It was excellent!!

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    1. By Margaret Atwood I only know Cat's Eye so far. An excellent novel too. I really wonder what this author made of such a great story as Shakespeare's The Tempest. At any rate, Hag-Seed sounds like a book that I should put on my TBR list.

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