Gather round ye respectable folk,

To witness God’s will be done.

Be still your plow and oxen under yolk,

Our cleansing has surely begun.

Ridding our midst of minions from Hell,

Let thy fires rage and consume.

At high noon on the ring of chapels twelfth bell,

Let thine sentence be seal of thy doom.

With bible in hand and righteous indignation,

The minister stern raises hand.

Tossing torch with a grin and pompous resignation,

Burning witches to ash by flames fanned.

Good Salem be freed from Satan’s cursed lot,

As thy God has so vocally commanded.

May their bodies for eternity lie in torment and rot,

Our morality, their souls remanded.

.

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

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AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Salem witch trials occurred in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft—the Devil’s magic—and 20 were executed. Eventually, the colony admitted the trials were a mistake and compensated the families of those convicted. Since then, the story of the trials has become synonymous with paranoia and injustice, and it continues to beguile the popular imagination more than 300 years later.  More can be read at the Smithsonian Magazine website http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/brief-salem.html