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lirik lagu robert frost - the witch of coös

i staid the night for shelter at a farm
behind the mountains, with a mother and son
two old~believers. they did all the talking

mother folks think a witch who has familiar spirits
she could call up to pass a winter evening
but won’t, should be burned at the stake or something
summoning spirits isn’t ‘b~tton, b~tton
who’s got the b~tton,’ i would have them know

son: mother can make a common table rear
and kick with two legs like an army mule

mother: and when i’ve done it, what good have i
done?
rather than tip a table for you, let me
tell you what ralle the sioux control oncе told me
he said the dеad had souls, but when i asked him
how could that be – i thought the dead were souls
he broke my trance. don’t that make you suspicious
that there’s something the dead are keeping back?
yes, there’s something the dead are keeping back

son: you wouldn’t want to tell him what we have
up attic, mother?
mother: bones – a skeleton

son: but the headboard of mother’s bed is pushed
against the’ attic door: the door is nailed
it’s harmless. mother hears it in the night
halting perplexed behind the barrier
of door and headboard. where it wants to get
is back into the cellar where it came from

mother: we’ll never let them, will we, son! we’ll
never !

son: it left the cellar forty years ago
and carried itself like a pile of dishes
up one flight from the cellar to the kitchen
another from the kitchen to the bedroom
another from the bedroom to the attic
right past both father and mother, and neither stopped
it
father had gone upstairs; mother was downstairs
i was a baby: i don’t know where i was

mother: the only fault my husband found with me –
i went to sleep before i went to bed
especially in winter when the bed
might just as well be ice and the clothes snow
the night the bones came up the cellar~stairs
toffile had gone to bed alone and left me
but left an open door to cool the room off
so as to sort of turn me out of it
i was just coming to myself enough
to wonder where the cold was coming from
when i heard toffile upstairs in the bedroom
and thought i heard him downstairs in the cellar
the board we had laid down to walk dry~shod on
when there was water in the cellar in spring
struck the hard cellar bottom. and then someone
began the stairs, two footsteps for each step
the way a man with one leg and a crutch
or a little child, comes up. it wasn’t toffile:
it wasn’t anyone who could be there
the bulkhead double~doors were double~locked
and swollen tight and buried under snow
the cellar windows were banked up with sawdust
and swollen tight and buried under snow
it was the bones. i knew them – and good reason
my first impulse was to get to the kn~b
and hold the door. but the bones didn’t try
the door; they halted helpless on the landing
waiting for things to happen in their favour.’
the faintest restless rustling ran all through them
i never could have done the thing i did
if the wish hadn’t been too strong in me
to see how they were mounted for this walk
i had a vision of them put together
not like a man, but like a chandelier
so suddenly i flung the door wide on him
a moment he stood balancing with emotion
and all but lost himself. (a tongue of fire
flashed out and l!cked along his upper t~~th
smoke rolled inside the sockets of his eyes.)
then he came at me with one hand outstretched
the way he did in life once; but this time
i struck the hand off brittle on the floor
and fell back from him on the floor myself
the finger~pieces slid in all directions
(where did i see one of those pieces lately?
hand me my b~tton~box~ it must be there.)
i sat up on the floor and shouted, ‘toffile
it’s coming up to you.’ it had its choice
of the door to the cellar or the hall
it took the hall door for the novelty
and set off briskly for so slow a thing
stillgoing every which way in the joints, though
so that it looked like lightning or a scribble
>from the slap i had just now given its hand
i listened till it almost climbed the stairs
>from the hall to the only finished bedroom
before i got up to do anything;
then ran and shouted, ‘shut the bedroom door
toffile, for my sake!’ ‘company?’ he said
‘don’t make me get up; i’m too warm in bed.’
so lying forward weakly on the handrail
i pushed myself upstairs, and in the light
(the kitchen had been dark) i had to own
i could see nothing. ‘toffile, i don’t see it
it’s with us in the room though. it’s the bones.’
‘what bones?’ ‘the cellar bones~ out of the grave.’
that made him throw his bare legs out of bed
and sit up by me and take hold of me
i wanted to put out the light and see
if i could see it, or else mow the room
with our arms at the level of our knees
and bring the chalk~pile down. ‘i’ll tell you what~
it’s looking for another door to try
the uncommonly deep snow has made him think
of his old song, the wild colonial boy
he always used to sing along the tote~road
he’s after an open door to get out~doors
let’s trap him with an open door up attic.’
toffile agreed to that, and sure enough
almost the moment he was given an opening
the steps began to climb the attic stairs
i heard them. toffile didn’t seem to hear them
‘quick !’ i slammed to the door and held the kn~b
‘toffile, get nails.’ i made him nail the door shut
and push the headboard of the bed against it
then we asked was there anything
up attic that we’d ever want again
the attic was less to us than the cellar
if the bones liked the attic, let them have it
let them stay in the attic. when they sometimes
come down the stairs at night and stand perplexed
behind the door and headboard of the bed
brushing their chalky skull with chalky fingers
with sounds like the dry rattling of a shutter
that’s what i sit up in the dark to say~
to no one any more since toffile died
2o3 let them stay in the attic since they went there
i promised toffile to be cruel to them
for helping them be cruel once to him
son: we think they had a grave down in the cellar

mother: we know they had a grave down in the cellar

son: we never could find out whose bones they were

mother: yes, we could too, son. tell the truth for once
they were a man’s his father k!lled for me
i mean a man he k!lled instead of me
the least i could do was to help dig their grave
we were about it one night in the cellar
son knows the story: but ’twas not for him
to tell the truth, suppose the time had come
son looks surprised to see me end a lie
we’d kept all these years between ourselves
so as to have it ready for outsiders
but to~night i don’t care enough to lie~
i don’t remember why i ever cared
toffile, if he were here, i don’t believe
could tell you why he ever cared himself~

she hadn’t found the finger~bone she wanted
among the b~ttons poured out in her lap
i verified the name next morning: toffile
the rural letter~box said toffile lajway

- lirik lagu robert frost

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