The Witchfinder General
Times have been harder, my faithful friends,
But the more I offer the cross
The more I swallow it, too.
These Norfolk roads, the devil horn bends,
Lead me only from what was
False, to wash the feet of truth.
I may be God’s hand, his finger tips,
The wretched shepherd waiting
For the wretched sheep;
But I have a heart behind these lips,
And it beats past berating,
Through each mordant week.
Each fork-tongued town, each scabrous clan,
Turns every word that I inveigh
Into Our Lord’s own grizzled breath.
My father, a cleric, a gravely serious man,
Warned me, from childhood, away
From this all consuming business of death.