The Little Creature

Twinkum, twankum, twirlum and twitch      My great grandam - She was a Witch.      Mouse in wainscot, Saint in niche -      My great grandam - She was a Witch;      Deadly nightshade flowers in a ditch -      My great grandam - She was a Witch;      Long though the shroud it grows stitch by stitch -      My great grandam - She was a Witch;      Wean your weakling before you breech -      My great grandam - She was a Witch;      The fattest pig's but a double flitch -      My great grandam - She was a Witch;      Nightjars rattle, owls scritch -      My great grandam - She was a Witch.         Pretty and small,         A mere nothing at all,         Pinned up sharp in the ghost of a shawl,         She'd straddle her down to the kirkyard wall,         And mutter and whisper and call; and call -         And - call.      Red blood out and black blood in,      My Nannie says I'm a child of sin -      How did I choose me my witchcraft kin!      Know I as soon as dark's dreams begin      Snared is my heart in a nightmare's gin;      Never from terror I out may win;      So dawn and dusk I pine, peak, thin,      Scarcely beknowing t'other from which -      My great grandam - She was a Witch.