  The darkness behind me is burning with eyes, It needs not my turning, I know otherwise: The air is a-quiver with rustle of wings And I feel the cold shiver of spiritual things! BenÉt, William Rose. Devil's Blood. (Second Film in "Films," in "The Burglar of the Zodiac.") ... Down the path— Is it but shadow?—steals a thread of wrath, A red bright thread. It reaches him. He reels. Wet! Warm! Wily athwart his step it steals And stains his white court footgear, toes to heels. Brooke, Rupert. Dead Men's Love. (In his Collected Poems. 1918.) There was a damned successful Poet. There was a Woman like the sun. And they were dead. They did not know it. They did not know their time was done. —— Hauntings. So a poor ghost, beside his misty streams, Is haunted by strange doubts, evasive dreams. Burnet, Dana. Ballad of the Late John Flint. (In his Poems. 1915.) The Bridegroom smiled a twisted smile, "The wine is strong," he said. The Bride she twirled her wedding ring Nor lifted up her head; And there were three at John Flint's board, And one of them was dead. Campbell, William Wilfred. The Mother. (In John W. Garvin's Canadian Poets and Poetry.) I dreamed that a rose-leaf hand did cling; Oh, you cannot bury a mother in spring! ........ I nestled him soft to my throbbing breast, And stole me back to my long, long rest. —— The Were-wolves. (In Stedman's Victorian Anthology.) Each panter in the darkness Is a demon-haunted soul, The shadowy, phantom were-wolves That circle round the pole. Carman, Bliss. The Nancy's Pride. (In his Ballads of Lost Haven.) Her crew lean forth by the rotting shrouds With the Judgment in their face; And to their mates' "God save you!" Have never a word of grace. —— The Yule Guest. (In Ballads of Lost Haven.) But in the Yule, O Yanna, Up from the round dim sea And reeling dungeons of the fog, I am come back to thee! Chalmers, Patrick R. The Little Ghost. (In his Green Days and Blue Days.) Down the long path, beset With heaven-scented, haunting mignonette, The gardeners say A little grey Ghost-lady walks! Colum, Padraic. The Ballad of Downal Baun. (In Wild Earth and Other Poems.) "O dream-taught man," said the woman— She stood where the willows grew, A woman from the country Where the cocks never crew. Couch, Arthur Quiller-. Dolor Oogo. (In John Masefield's A Sailor's Garland.) Thirteen men by Ruan Shore, Dolor Oogo, Dolor Oogo, DrownÈd men since 'eighty-four Down in Dolor Oogo: On the cliff against the sky, Ailsa, wife of Malachi That cold woman— Sits and knits eternally. De La Mare, Walter. The Keys of Morning. (In his The Listeners.) She slanted her small bead-brown eyes Across the empty street And saw Death softly watching her In the sunshine pale and sweet. —— The Listeners. But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveller's call. —— The Witch. All of these dead were stirring Each unto each did call, "A witch, a witch is sleeping Under the churchyard wall." Dollard, Father. Ballad of the Banshee. (In J. W. Garvin's Canadian Poets and Poetry.) Yet I often wonder If these things are really dead. If the old trunks never open Letting out grey flapping things at twilight. If it is all as safe and dull As it seems? Furlong, Alice. The Warnings. (In Padric Gregory's Modern Anglo-Irish Verse.) I was weaving by the door-post, when I heard the Death-Watch beating; And I signed the Cross upon me, and I spoke the Name of Three. High and fair, through cloud and air, a silver moon was fleeting, But the night began to darken as the Death-Watch beat for me. Gibson, Wilfrid Wilson. The Blind Rower. (In his Collected Poems. 1917.) Some say they saw the dead man steer— The dead man steer the blind man home— Though, when they found him dead, His hand was cold as lead. —— Comrades. As I was marching in Flanders A ghost kept step with me— Kept step with me and chuckled, And muttered ceaselessly. —— The Lodging House. And when at last I stand outside My garret door I hardly dare To open it, Lest when I fling it wide With candle lit And reading in my only chair I find myself already there. Hagedorn, Hermann. The Last Faring. (In Poems and Ballads.) The Father Into the storm he drives! Full is the sail; But the wind blows wilder and shriller! The Son 'Tis the ghost of a Sea-King, my father, rigid and pale, That holds so firm the tiller! —— The Cobbler of Glamorgan. He coughed, he turned; and crystal-eyed He stared, for the bolted door stood wide, And on the threshold, faint and grand, He saw the awful Gray Man stand. His flesh was a thousand snails that crept, But his face was calm though his pulses leapt. Herford, Oliver. Ye Knyghte-mare. (In The Bashful Earthquake.) Ye log burns dimme, and eke more dimme, Loud groans each knyghtlie gueste, As ye ghost of his grandmother, gaunt and grimme, Sits on each knyghte hys cheste. Kilmer, Joyce. The White Ships and the Red. (In W. S. Braithwaite's Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1915.) The red ship is the Lusitania. "She goes to the bottom all in red to join all the other dead ships, which are in white." Le Gallienne, Richard. Ballad of the Dead Lover. (In his New Poems. 1910.) She took his head upon her knee And called him love and very fair. And with a golden comb she combed The grave-dust from his hair. Lowell, Amy. The Crossroads. (In her Men, Women, and Ghosts.) In polyphonic prose. The body buried at the crossroads struggles for twenty years to free itself of the stake driven through its heart and wreak vengeance on its enemy. It is finally successful as the funeral cortÈge of this enemy comes down the road. "He wavers like smoke in the buffeting wind. His fingers blow out like smoke, his head ripples in the gale. Under the sign post, in the pouring rain, he stands, and watches another quavering figure drifting down the Wayfleet road. Then swiftly he streams after it..." Marquis, Don. Haunted. (In his Dreams and Dust.) Drink and forget, make merry and boast, But the boast rings false and the jest is thin. In the hour that I meet ye ghost to ghost, Stripped of the flesh that ye skulk within, Stripped to the coward soul 'ware of its sin, Ye shall learn, ye shall learn, whether dead men hate! Masefield, John. Cape Horn Gospel. (In his Collected Poems. 1918.) "I'm a-weary of them there mermaids," Says old Bill's ghost to me, "It ain't no place for Christians, Below there, under sea. For it's all blown sands and shipwrecks And old bones eaten bare, And them cold fishy females With long green weeds for hair." —— Mother Carey. She lives upon an iceberg to the norred 'N' her man is Davy Jones, 'N' she combs the weeds upon her forred With poor drowned sailors' bones. Maynard, Winifred. Saint Catherine. (In The Book of Winifred Maynard.) ... "Saint Catherine," in which the spotless virginity of the saint is made ashamed by the pitiful ghosts, who whisper their humanity to her in a dream.—William Stanley Braithwaite. Middleton, Jesse Edgar. Off Heligoland. (In his Seadogs and Men-at-arms.) Ghostly ships in a ghostly sea... Millay, Edna St. Vincent. The Little Ghost. (In her Renascence.) I knew her for a little ghost That in my garden walked; The wall is high—higher than most— And the green gate was locked. Monroe, Harriet. The Legend of Pass Christian. (In her You and I.) Now we, who wait one night a year Under these branches long, May see a flaming ship, and hear The echo of a song. —— A Song of Sherwood. The dead are coming back again, the years are rolled away, In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day. Scollard, Clinton. A Ballad of Hallowmass. (In his Ballads Patriotic and Romantic.) It happed at the time of Hallowmass, when the dead may walk abroad, That the wraith of Ralph of the Peaceful Heart went forth from the courts of God. Seeger, Alan. Broceliande. (In his Poems. 1917.) Untroubled, untouched by the woes of this world are the moon-marshalled hosts that invade Broceliande. Shorter, Dora Sigerson. All Souls' Night. (In Stedman's Victorian Anthology.) ... Deelish! Deelish! My woe forever that I could not sever coward flesh from fear. I called his name and the pale ghost came; but I was afraid to meet my dear. Sterling, George. A Wine of Wizardry. (In A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems. 1909.) And, ere the tomb-thrown mutterings have ceased, The blue-eyed vampire, sated at her feast, Smiles bloodily against the leprous moon. Widdemer, Margaret. The Forgotten Soul. (In her The Factories.) 'Twas I that stood to greet you on the churchyard pave— (O fire o' my heart's grief, how could you never see?) You smiled in pleasant dreaming as you crossed my grave And crooned a little love-song where they buried me! —— The House of Ghosts. Out from the House of Ghosts I fled Lest I should turn and see The child I had been lift her head And stare aghast at me. Yeats, William Butler. The Ballad of Father Gilligan. (In Burton Stevenson's The Home Book of Verse.) How an angel obligingly took upon itself the form and performed the duties of Father Gilligan while the father was asleep at his post. —— The Host of the Air. Based upon a scrap of folklore in "The Celtic Twilight" and apparently among the simplest of his poems, nothing he has ever done shows a greater mastery of atmosphere, or a greater metrical mastery.—Forrest Reid. He heard, while he sang and dreamed, A piper piping away, And never was piping so sad, And never was piping so gay. |
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