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 happier themes, O many-voiced epic,
Sing how the ages, like thrifty husbandmen, winnow the creeds of men,
And leave only faith and love and truth. 
Sing of the Puritan’s nobler nature,
Fathomless as the forests he felled,
Irresistible as the winds that blow. 
His trenchant conviction was but the somber bulwark
Which guarded his pure ideal. 
Resolute by the communion board he stood,
And after solemn prayer solemnly cancelled
And abolished the divine right of kings
And declared the holy rights of man. 
Prophet and toiler, yearning for other worlds, yet wise in this;
Scornful of earthly empire and brooding on death,
Yet wrestling life out of the wilderness
And laying stone on stone the foundation of a temporal