Ghost House

I dwell with a strangely aching heart

In that vanished abode there far apart

On that disused and forgotten road

That has no dust-bath now for the toad.

O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield

The woods come back to the mowing field;

The orchard tree has grown one copse

Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;

It is under the small, dim, summer star.

I know not who these mute folk are

Who share the unlit place with me

Those stones out under the low-limbed tree

They are tireless folk, but slow and sad

Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,

With none among them that ever sings,

And yet, in view of how many things,

As sweet companions as might be had.

- Robert Frost

Image source.

Dodging, Disappearing,...

Goblins on the doorstep,

     Phantoms in the air,

Owls on witches’ gate posts,

     Giving stare for stare.

 

Cats on flying broomsticks,

     Bats against the moon,

Stirring round of fate-cakes,

     With a solemn spoon.

 

Whirling apple parings,

     Figures draped in sheets,

Dodging, disappearing,

     Up and down the streets.

 

Jack-o’-lanterns grinning,

     Shadows on a screen,

Shrieks and starts and laughter -

     This is Halloween!

 

- Dorothy Brown Thompson

Image source.

In-Between

By Ray Bradbury

Attics are awful and lovely.

You know what I mean?

Basements are low, dank, and darksome,

Halloween’s buried there;

The air of the earth

Simmers slowly, gives rise

To nightmares at midnight,

The size of its shadows is awesome.

And in-between?

The house that we live in,

Sane, boring and plain,

Pictures hung straight on walls,

Here nothing appalls,

The rugs if they misbehave,

Are twice taken out and beaten.

Meals are eaten three times a day

In a room where our dining,

And occasional wining with poker 

With loud uncles who laugh

When the joker is played,

Is all staid; sound and clean.

In-between, where we live, in-between,

A boy could go mad.

So on sad days in autumn,

He takes his dry soul

Down the hole in the dark

Or, pure lark on the fly,

Climbs to attic and sky,

Where the wind leans all year,

And pure fear is the stuff

That roams gardens of dust

And web, where the spider,

Soft glider of nerves,

Serves a fly for dessert

Then back down to the scene

Where the green salad waits

On dumb dining room plates

And nice parents whose talk

Is a chalk-screech on board.

Where the lands of the Lord

Are a Sunday morn chat

That can flatten the mind

And sift dust in the ear

Year on year.  No wildness.  No joy.

No place for a boy.

Attic, yes!  Basement, sure!

There the terror is pure.

There an All Hallows grave

Can save souls that might smother

From calm dad or sweet mother.

Up! Down! That’s the scene!

But---In-between?

Oh my gosh.  In-between?

Know what I mean?

Witch Hollow

The Hag is astride,

    This night for to ride;

The Devill and shee together:

    Through thick, and through thin,

    Now out, and then in,

Though ne'r so foule be the weather.

    A Thorn or a Burr

    She takes for a Spurre:

With a lash of a Bramble she rides now,

    Through Brakes and through Bryars,

    O're Ditches, and Mires,

She followes the Spirit that guides now.

    No Beast, for his food,

    Dares now range the wood;

But husht in his laire he lies lurking:

    While mischiefs, by these,

    On Land and on Seas,

At noone of Night are working,

    The storme will arise,

    And trouble the skies;

This night, and more for the wonder,

    The ghost from the Tomb

    Affrighted shall come,

Cal'd out by the clap of the Thunder.

- Robert Herrick

Crimson

The night is darkening round me

The wild winds coldly blow

But a tyrant spell has bound me

And I cannot cannot go

- Emily Brontë

The Witch

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.

- Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Image by Jeff Bradley.

Westend Manor

Goblins on the doorstep,

     Phantoms in the air,

Owls on witches’ gate posts,

     Giving stare for stare.

 

Cats on flying broomsticks,

     Bats against the moon,

Stirring round of fate-cakes,

     With a solemn spoon.

 

Whirling apple parings,

     Figures draped in sheets,

Dodging, disappearing,

     Up and down the streets.

 

Jack-o’-lanterns grinning,

     Shadows on a screen,

Shrieks and starts and laughter -

     This is Halloween!

 

- Dorothy Brown Thompson

More images from Westend Manor here.

Trampling On Thistles

Evening was in the wood, louring with storm.
A time of drought had sucked the weedy pool
And baked the channels; birds had done with song.
Thirst was a dream of fountains in the moon,
Or willow-music blown across the water
Leisurely sliding on by weir and mill.

- Siegfried Sassoon

Poem here.

The Witches Of York

"Black still and clover: in a one
A coffin; now third deal, and done.
Hearts six, and dabbled o'er with red:
Within that space thy wooer dead;
Spades seven: to thee are left seven years to run."

- George Houghton

 Image by Chris.

Poem here.

Old Autumn

I SAW old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn

- Thomas Hood

A beautiful photo by Jenna, from an outing this past weekend in the hilly terrain of northern New Jersey.  A perfect photoshoot location with rolling hills of old cornfields, deep ravines, tired barns, and rocky streams.  Can't wait to bring more props up there.

Face Of The Devil

Lucifer's merriment - dancing, prancing - 
Frightening sight of dread.
Fiery hair, a wicked tail,
Two winged dogs do tread.
Deceitful laugh, disdainful joy,
On this his scornful night;
Then devilish shrieks and fearful screams
Evoke a dreadful sight.

- Peter V. Fritsch

Image by Zack Huggins.

Winter Fear

Is it just winter
or is this worse.
Is this the year
when outer damp
obscures a deeper curse
that spring can’t fix,
when gears that
turn the earth
won’t shift the view,
when clouds won’t lift
though all the skies
go blue.

- Kay Ryan

Witch Burning

In the marketplace they are piling the dry sticks.
A thicket of shadows is a poor coat. I inhabit
The wax image of myself, a doll's body.
Sickness begins here: I am the dartboard for witches.
Only the devil can eat the devil out.
In the month of red leaves I climb to a bed of fire.

- Sylvia Plath

Image from Moaning Acres.

Of Monasteries

Full fifteen hundred years have wound

Since cenobite first harboured here;

The bones of men, deemed martyrs crowned,

To fossils turn in mountain near;

Nor less while now lone scribe may write,

Even now, in living dead of night,

In Saba's lamps the flames aspire —

The votaries tend the far-transmitted fire.

- Herman Melville

Image source.

Death's Ferryman

From this silver-sanded shore,

Beckon him to row thee o'er;

Where yon solemn shadows be,

I shall wait thee -- come and see!

-- There! the white sails float and flow,

One in heaven and one below;

And I hear a low voice cry,

Ferryman of Death am I.

- Alice Cary

Image by Karen Juliano.

To Autumn

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained

With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit

Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayst rest,

And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,

And all the daughters of the year shall dance!

Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

- William Blake

Image by radiant star.

The Harvest People

The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,
Till it takes off, and sinks upward
To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon.
The harvest moon has come,
Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon.
And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.

So people can't sleep,
So they go out where elms and oak trees keep
A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush.
The harvest moon has come!

- Ted Hughes

Image by Moonage Daydreamer.

Bogeyman

The fourth sorrow
Is the pond gone black
Ruined, and sunken the city of water—
The beetle's palace, 
The catacombs of the dragonfly. 

- Ted Hughes

October

I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
walnut and may leaves the color
of shoulders at the end of summer
a month that has been to the mountain
and become light there
the long grass lies pointing uphill
even in death for a reason
that none of us knows

- W. S. Merwin

Witchy And Wild

Things of the earth,

Beetles, shards and wings of moth

And snail houses left

From last summer’s wreck,

Now spring smoke

Of the burned dead leaves

And veils of the scent

Of some secret plant...

- Jean Garrigue

Getting the garden in shape.  We got some spooky beauties today at a local nursery.  Looking forward to seeing how the garden evolves this year.  

Hopefully Dark and Brooding.