The Witch
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

I have walked a great while over the snow,
And I am not tall nor strong.
My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set,
And the way was hard and long.
I have wandered over the fruitful earth,
But I never came here before.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

The cutting wind is a cruel foe.
I dare not stand in the blast.
My hands are stone, and my voice a groan,
And the worst of death is past.
I am but a little maiden still,
My little white feet are sore.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

Her voice was the voice that women have,
Who plead for their heart's desire.
She came—she came—and the quivering flame
Sunk and died in the fire.
It never was lit again on my hearth
Since I hurried across the floor,
To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door.

The Witch’ by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge is a three-stanza poem that tells a short narrative about the journey, and arrival, of a woman, widely deemed to be the witch in the poem, at the house of a man whose life is altered forever when he lets her in. The Witch’ is a short narrative poem in which the initial speaker of the poem, the witch, is describing the trial she has undergone and all of the hardships she faced as she wandered around the earth. She tells the reader she is not strong in body and her “clothes are wet.” The journey has been hard on her and the reader may ask, how did she do it? This is the first clue that there is more to this woman than one might initially think. She is imploring outside of a home she has never visited before, asking to be let in.