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See the hag who's sitting there among the girls
serving the mute goddess (but not so mute herself):
three fingers push three lumps of incense 'neath the door
down where the tiny mouse has made its secret path.
Then she binds her magic threads with dull, dark lead,
putting in her mouth seven blackened beans.
A fish's head, stitched, sewn with a brazen needle,
and safely sealed with pitch, she roasts upon her fire.
Wine she pours upon it: and the wine left over
she or her companions, but mostly she, drink up.
"So we have silenced hostile tongues and enemy mouths"
she says in leaving. And, drunk, the old hag walks away.
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