I shall go into a hare

with sorrow and sighs and mickle care,

and I shall go in the Devil’s name,

ay, till I come home again.

Then I shall find myself a dog

with bloody teeth and eyes agog,

serving my master till the day

he leaves my carcass for crows to flay, 

from which I’ll rise up as a fly

to scribble nothing on the sky

and lick the sweat from lovers’ skin

and suck the blood that burns within.

Infecting one, I’ll raise a boil

and progress through his mortal coil,

racking his guts, dulling his eye,

leaving his spirit with a sigh

to grow and stretch inside her womb 

and fill and foul its swelling room 

while dripping poison in her head 

to lure her to the riverbed.

I’ll freely give of my own flesh

to fatten up a passing fish 

and as my grosser nature thins,

feel my way into its fins

until the day I grace the table 

of a lofty lady, fair as fable,

who keeps a mirror in her bower

and gazes eastward from her tower.

Last, I’ll swim the sea of stars

reflected in her looking glass,

and I shall summon my own name 

to bring me safely home again.

Note: The first stanza is a shape-changing charm quoted by Isobel Gowdie in her confession to witchcraft at Auldearn, Scotland in 1662. She claimed that uttering these words enabled her to turn into a hare.