Saturday Rave: My Witch by Nicholas Breton.

 

Are there such things as witches?

Well, sure there's magic in the world,

Or so it has long seemed 

To us poor souls

Who creep about upon it.

This poem, below, is by Nicholas Breton, who came into the world and left it so quietly that no one marked his passage.

 

(I'm not going to highlight all the witches in this poem or it'll look as if it's broken-out in some horrid sort of alien measles.)
 

My Witch

  

by Nicholas Breton 1545?- 1626?

 

Your eyes bewitched my wit, your wit bewitched my will,
Thus with your eyes and wit you do bewitch me still
And yet you are no witch, whose spirit is not evil,
And yet you are a witch, and yet you are no devil.
Oh witching eyes, and wit, where wit and eyes may read,
A witch, and not a witch, and yet a witch indeed.

 

 

Lais of Corinth by Hans Holbein the Younger, Kunstmuseum Basel

 

Word To Use Today: witch. This word comes from the Old English wicca, and is realted to the Middle Low German wicken, to conjure, and the Swedish vicka, to move to and fro.