Category: Ghosts

The Mist by John Copwer Powys

In and out of the mist
We waver, ghosts that we are!
And the hands and lips we have kissed
Beckon us from afar:
Beckon us, whisper us, cry to us.
In and out of the mist;
Mock us, elude us, fly from us;
The hands and lips we have kissed.

In and out of the mist, like ghosts
We waver along the shore.
Flickering phantom-hosts,
Lost evermore — evermore!
Whispering, beckoning, sighing,
Weeping, vexing the night.
Nothing can stop our crying.
Except red burning light!

Ghosts in the mist are we,
And ghosts are the planets who peer
And peep at our misery.
With their tender pitiful leer;
But the great vermilion sun
That in one moment’s blaze
Could melt, transfigure, and clarify.
And outline against eternity.
Our inmost selves and our troubled days,

The laughing, careless, reckless sun,
The life-giver, when all is done,
Knowing no weakness or tenderness,
Having no pity for our distress.
Sick to death of our mists and lies,
Pours himself upon other skies.

I Say I’ll Seek Her by Thomas Hardy

I say, “I’ll seek her side
Ere hindrance interposes;”
But eve in midnight closes,
And here I still abide.

When darkness wears I see
Her sad eyes in a vision;
They ask, “What indecision
Detains you, Love, from me? –

“The creaking hinge is oiled,
I have unbarred the backway,
But you tread not the trackway;
And shall the thing be spoiled?

“Far cockcrows echo shrill,
The shadows are abating,
And I am waiting, waiting;
But O, you tarry still!”

Ghosts by Marion Francis Brown

The wind is full of ghosts tonight.
Let them carry your body far.
Let them bury you out of sight
Under a brooding star.

I can not weep for blood or bone.
Flesh grown cold or eyes that stare.
Let them tuck you under a stone.
Little, little I care.

For the wind is full of ghosts that talk,
And I a rendezvous must keep
With something more than dust and chalk
Before I sleep.

Ghostlings by Dorothy Quick

 

Out of the silence of the night

Come icy fingers tipped with snow,

And a strange thin piping

That no birds know.
And there are misty figures

Ringing the world apart;

Casting unbearable terror

All around the heart.
Gaping, senseless, horrid faces

Coming from another world;

There are the nameless ghostlings.

The dark unfurled.
These are the nameless ghostlings.

Creeping slowly as the mist.

To weave the spells of horror

No mortal can resist.

Sonnet: Ghosts by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Those forms we fancy shadows, those strange lights
That flash on dank morasses, the quick wind
That smites us by the roadside – are the Night’s
Innumerable children. Unconfined
By shroud or coffin, disembodied souls,
Uneasy spirits, steal into the air
From ancient graveyards when the curfew tolls
At the day’s death. Pestilence and despair
Fly with the sightless bats at set of sun;
And wheresoever murders have been done,
In crowded palaces or lonely woods,
Where’er a soul has sold itself and lost
Its high inheritance, there, hovering, broods
Some sad, invisible, accursed ghost!

Ghosts by Joseph Campbell

The nettle chokes the beaten earth,
The ivy-tree the stone–
The living dead must mind
The walls that were their own.

The living dead must surely mind
The constant stream that spills
Into a granite pool
Between the folding hills.

It twists about, it trickles thro’
And with a hollow sound,
It spills into the pool,
And gurgles underground.

Last night, last night, as I came by
The ruins grey and bare,
I heard a human voice
Make music on the air

For tho’ the nettle chokes the earth,
The ivy-tree the stone,
The living dead must mind
The walls that were their own.

I looked, and lo, the driven moon
Hid in a bank of cloud;
And when it shone I saw
A woman in her shroud

She sang, and washed a wooden churn
All in the water white:
Her hair was in the stream,
Her shroud was spun of light.

She washed, and coloured bubbles foamed,
About her fallen hair;
And human laughter rang
Into the icy air.

It seemed the pool was white with feet,
The darkness bright with eyes,
The ruins warm with song,
With laughter and with sighs.

For though the nettle chokes the earth,
The ivy-tree the stone,
The living dead must mind
The walls that were their own.

And Ghosts Break Up Their Graves by John Vance Cheney

Swift round and round yon yellow mound,
With grasses rank and pale,
Race stiffened leaves; a waking sound
Is on the autumn gale.

The night winds blow till heard below,
The graves unquiet be;
Now here, now there, shapes to and fro
Are moving silently.

The dead are up; they take the gale
That rakes the yellow mound.
Hark! laughter the~e! or was it wail?
Life does not know that sound.

The trees lean close, the owlets cry,
They wait the midnight swoon;
See! it is like a dead man’s eye,
The dim, the flying moon.

Motley the Ghost by Walter de la Mare

‘Who knocks?’ ‘I, who was beautiful,
Beyond all dreams to restore,
I, from the roots of the dark thorn am hither.
And knock on the door.’

‘Who speaks?’ ‘I – once was my speech
Sweet as the bird’s on the air,
When echo lurks by the waters to heed;
‘Tis I speak thee fair.’

‘Dark is the hour!’ ‘Ay, and cold.’
‘Lone is my house.’ ‘Ah, but mine?’
‘Sight, touch, lips, eyes yearned in vain.’
‘Long dead these to thine…’

Silence. Still faint on the porch
Brake the flames of the stars.
In gloom groped a hope-wearied hand
Over keys, bolts, and bars.

A face peered. All the grey night
In chaos of vacancy shone;
Nought but vast sorrow was there –
The sweet cheat gone.

On A Heath by Thomas Hardy

 

I could hear a gown-skirt rustling

Before I could see her shape,

Rustling through the heather

That wove the common’s drape,

On that evening of dark weather

When I hearkened, lips agape.
And the town-shine in the distance

Did but baffle here the sight,

And then a voice flew forward:

“Dear, is’t you? I fear the night!”

And the herons flapped to norward

In the firs upon my right.
There was another looming

Whose life we did not see’

There was one stilly blooming

Full nigh to where walked we ;

There was a shade entombing

All that was bright of me.

My Darling, We Sat Together by Heinrich Heine

My darling, we sat together,
We two, in our frail boat;
The night was calm o’er the wide sea
Whereon we were afloat.

The Specter-Island, the lovely,
Lay dim in the moon’s mild glance;
There sounded sweetest music,
There waved the shadowy dance.

It sounded sweeter and sweeter,
It waved there to and fro;
But we slid past forlornly
Upon the great sea-flow.