A FARMER.
Good morrow, neighbor Corey.
COREY (not hearing him).
Who is safe?
How do I know but under my own roof
I too may harbor Witches, and some Devil
Be plotting and contriving against me?
The Annotated Edition
A FARMER. by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Read aloud in ~1 minOpen reading mode →
This brief dramatic piece features Corey, a Puritan farmer overwhelmed by the hysteria of the Salem witch trials.
- Themes
- faith, fear, home
§01Quick summary
What this poem is about
This brief dramatic piece features Corey, a Puritan farmer overwhelmed by the hysteria of the Salem witch trials. He's so absorbed in his fears that he can't even acknowledge a neighbor's friendly greeting. Corey expresses the deep paranoia that witches and the Devil could be lurking within his own home. This fragment illustrates how widespread panic can transform everyday life into a source of fear.
§02Themes
Recurring themes
§03Line by line
Stanza by stanza, with notes
Good morrow, neighbor Corey.
Editor's note
A neighbor gives a typical morning greeting — the most ordinary social exchange you can think of. However, its cheerful tone is quickly overshadowed by what comes next, and that contrast is crucial: everyday life has been overtaken by fear.
COREY (not hearing him). / Who is safe?
Editor's note
The stage direction reveals that Corey is so consumed by his own dread that he can't even notice what's happening around him. His first words — a rhetorical question — establish the mood: the idea of safety has vanished for him. The question lingers without an answer because, in his mind, there simply isn't one.
How do I know but under my own roof / I too may harbor Witches, and some Devil
Editor's note
Corey directs his suspicion towards his own home. The phrase 'under my own roof' carries significant weight—his home, which should represent safety and trust, now feels like a possible lair of evil. The capitalization of 'Witches' and 'Devil' mirrors the conventions of Puritan writing from that era, lending a sense of authority and institutional gravity to his fears.
Be plotting and contriving against me?
Editor's note
The fragment cuts off abruptly, leaving a question unanswered. The verbs 'plotting and contriving' imply a purposeful conspiracy, making Corey feel like a target. This open ending reflects the nature of paranoia: without a resolution, there's only persistent suspicion and no sense of relief.
§04Tone & mood
How this poem feels
The tone feels anxious and claustrophobic. Longfellow removes all rhetorical flourishes, allowing Corey's fear to emerge in simple, stumbling sentences. The neighbor's cheerful greeting makes the farmer's inner thoughts seem even more isolated and unsettling in comparison. There's no comfort, no resolution—only a sense of dread that keeps folding in on itself.
§05Symbols & metaphors
Symbols & metaphors
- The roof / home
- Corey's roof, once a traditional symbol of safety and family, has twisted in his mind into a potential hiding spot for evil. It shows how the witch-trial hysteria seeped into the most intimate areas of Puritan life.
- The unanswered greeting
- The neighbor's "Good morrow" goes completely unnoticed. It represents the everyday social world that paranoia blocks out — community, trust, and basic human connection are all out of reach for Corey.
- The Devil / Witches (capitalized)
- These fears aren't just personal; they're embedded in institutions. The capital letters reflect the official Puritan theological and legal language of the Salem trials, illustrating how the power of the state and church turned these terrors into something tangible and real.
§06Historical context
Historical context
This excerpt is from Longfellow's verse drama *Giles Corey of the Salem Farms* (1868), which is the third part of his *New England Tragedies*. The play dramatizes the Salem witch trials of 1692, centering on the true story of Giles Corey, a farmer who was pressed to death under stones for refusing to plead. Longfellow wrote this work in the aftermath of the Civil War, a time when Americans were grappling with the ways communities can break apart due to fear and ideology. The Salem trials have long been seen as a cautionary tale about mob mentality and the misuse of religious power, and Longfellow chose the dramatic form to allow historical figures to express themselves directly instead of being filtered through narrative verse. This fragment captures Corey before his arrest, already overwhelmed by the societal panic surrounding him.
§07FAQ
Questions readers ask
Yes, Giles Corey was a real farmer in Salem, Massachusetts. During the 1692 witch trials, he was accused of witchcraft and chose not to enter a plea, leading to his execution by being pressed under heavy stones—a method used to force a plea. He reportedly uttered "more weight" as he died. Longfellow's drama is directly based on this historical record.
It's a piece from a verse drama—a type of play written in poetic form. Longfellow's *New England Tragedies* resemble stage plays, featuring character names, stage directions, and dialogue, but the language is more lyrical than ordinary prose. This excerpt captures the spoken lines of one character from that broader work.
The stage direction 'not hearing him' is a purposeful dramatic choice. Corey is so consumed by his own fear and paranoia that he can't hear the outside world — even a simple friendly greeting. This illustrates how hysteria can cut people off from normal human interaction.
During the Salem trials, accusations quickly circulated among families and communities. Corey's worry that his own household could be hiding witches highlights the historical truth that no one was safe from suspicion, even within their own family. Longfellow illustrates how this hysteria shattered the fundamental unit of trust — the home.
Longfellow is echoing the writing style of 17th-century Puritan New England, where important theological ideas and feared beings were frequently capitalized in writings and sermons. This approach lends these words a sense of authority and gravity—they represent not only personal fears but also publicly recognized threats supported by both church and law.
Ending on 'against me?' without a response reflects the psychological nature of paranoia—it never finds resolution, only continues to loop. Without a closing statement of safety or reassurance, the reader is left in the same tense, unsettled state as Corey.
The Salem trials frequently appear in American literature as a way to explore themes of fear, conformity, and power abuse. Longfellow addressed this in 1868, prior to Arthur Miller's renowned *The Crucible* (1953), which directly linked those historical events to McCarthyism. Both pieces use Salem to pose a crucial question: what occurs in a community when fear dictates policy.
The tone is thick with claustrophobic dread. Longfellow achieves this through contrast—the neighbor's cheerful greeting clashing with Corey's spiraling interior monologue—and by using a structure filled with unanswered questions. The simple, straightforward language makes the fear feel raw and immediate, not theatrical.
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