Salem ✝️

In sixteen ninety-two, in Salem Town fear caught fire and burned men down. Girls cried out, and the courts leaned in, every prayer could be turned to sin. The accusers were mostly young girls: Abigail Williams, Betty Parris' fear Ann Putnam Junior, Mercy Lewis too Tituba's fear fed what they knew. Some spoke from pain, some from spite, some wanted status, some wanted right. Neighbors named by the shake of a hand, then the whole town trembled at command. Men in cloth, men in cloth they blessed the fear and fed the froth. Men in cloth, (men in cloth) they turned a rumor into wrath. Men in cloth, (men in cloth) and the weak paid more for the loss. Men in cloth, (men in cloth), the witch hunt rolled where power crossed. Bridget Bishop, age sixty or so hanged June tenth on Gallows Hill's slope. Sarah Good, age thirty-nine, then dead by rope, Sarah Osborne died in jail, denied all hope. Rebecca Nurse, seventy-one, hanged July nineteenth, a pious one. Susannah Martin, seventy-one, Elizabeth Howe, fifty-seven, done. Alice Parker, Martha Carrier, Mary Easty, Martha Cory, all were snared. George Burroughs, a minister, hanged, John Proctor, forty, hanged as they claimed. John Willard, thirty-eight, hanged too, Martha Carrier's sons were pulled through. Giles Corey, eighty, pressed to death, Dorothy Good, just four, jailed in distress. No children were hanged in that fear-soaked year, but the young were named and dragged near. And when the frenzy finally broke, Salem still wore the bruise of its smoke. Men in cloth, (men in cloth) they blessed the fear and fed the froth. Men in cloth, (men in cloth) they turned a rumor into wrath. Men in cloth, (men in cloth) and the weak paid more for the loss. Men in cloth, (men in cloth) the witch hunt rolled where power crossed.