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Averted Malefice
by Clark Ashton SmithWhere mandrakes, crying from the moonless fen,
Told how a witch, with gaze of owl or bat
Found, and each root malevolently fat
Pulled for her waiting cauldron, on my ken
Upstole, escaping to the world of men,
A vapor as of some infernal vat;
Against the stars it clomb, and caught thereat
As if their bright regard to veil again.
Despite the web, methought they saw, appalled,
The stealthier weft in which all sound was still ...
Then sprang, as if the night found breath anew,
A wind whereby the stars were disenthralled ...
Far off, I heard the cry of frustrate ill -
A witch that wailed above her curdled brew.