One night they spent in ecstasy,
One night in passion's throes,
Slow hours of sweet lovemaking
Before the sun arose.
A morning late they lay abed,
Each reveling in the other,
Yet Atropa's thoughts were haunted
By the curse of her own mother.
20
And when she rose and opened wide
The bedroom window's shutters,
She gasped and quickly stepped away
And her whole body shuddered.
For grown up high around the house
The plants obscured the panorama!
"Oh, no, my love,
I should have known, my love,
To beware the belladonna!"
21
Quick they dressed and quick they ran
Into the witch's kitchen,
Where she met them already knowing
Of the curse that now did plague them.
"I told you child, I warned you,
What would come of men's affections,
And now I fear this is one thing
From which I can't protect him."
22
In fear they stayed a whole week long,
Atropa and her husband,
Til the old witch, her grandmother,
Said that they must do something.
She claimed the man must face the vines,
Consulting the Arcana,
"Beware, dear boy,
Take care, dear boy,
Beware the belladonna!"
23
Out into the twilight
The young husband ventured,
While his young bride
And the old witch watched on in terror,
The vining plants surrounded him
And in a moment he was gone
Atropa gasped in horror
As they pulled him to the ground.
24
A darkness covered the cottage
For long moments more like hours,
Then suddenly the vined mass cleared
Revealing quiet flowers.
The man was dead, Atropa knelt
Amid the orange lantana,
"Oh, my dear love,
Don't fear my love,
No more the belladonna."
So the old grandmother raised the child,
The beautiful Atropa
Who only grew more beautiful
Each day as she grew older;
Grew in wisdom and in kindness
And at each day's twilight end,
She could be found in the garden
With the flowers as her friends.
14
Soon she gained in her all knowledge
That her grandmother could teach,
All the secret herbal wisdom
That the old woman could preach,
Learned the healing powers of mugwort,
Of the purple gentiana, and to
"Beware, my child,
Take care, my child,
Beware the belladonna!"
15
One day there came a visitor
To the witch's humble dwelling;
A man who saw Atropa
And felt his faint heart swelling,
And Atropa felt within her
The sudden quickening of her own heart
And from that moment forward
The two would seldom part.
16
But the wise old witch remembered well
Her dying daughter's curse,
And for the handsome suitor
She began to fear the worst.
She warned the girl: Unless you wish
Your love the fate of hell's dark sauna,
Beware, my child,
Take care my child,
Beware the belladonna!"
17
But Atropa could not bring herself
To shun her suitor's calls,
And with a ring an oath was made
To marry in the fall.
The summer long, the hedges grew
In twisting vines, and wild
The nightshade grew, its job to do
Protecting the girl child.
18
The blessed day came to pass,
The ceremony filled with light,
The lover's hands were bound up fast
And then the glorious wedding night.
She whispered quiet to her husband,
"Taste my aphrodisiac damiana!
But beware, my love,
Take care, my love,
Beware the belladonna!"