Luke Havergal by Edward Arlington Robinson

Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal,
There where the vines cling crimson on the wall,
And in the twilight wait for what will come.
The leaves will whisper there of her, and some,
Like flying words, will strike you as they fall;
But go, and if you listen she will call.
Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal—
Luke Havergal.

No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies
To rift the fiery night that’s in your eyes;
But there, where western glooms are gathering,
The dark will end the dark, if anything:
God slays Himself with every leaf that flies,
And hell is more than half of paradise.
No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies—
In eastern skies.

Out of a grave I come to tell you this,
Out of a grave I come to quench the kiss
That flames upon your forehead with a glow
That blinds you to the way that you must go.
Yes, there is yet one way to where she is,
Bitter, but one that faith may never miss.
Out of a grave I come to tell you this—
To tell you this.

There is the western gate, Luke Havergal,
There are the crimson leaves upon the wall.
Go, for the winds are tearing them away,—
Nor think to riddle the dead words they say,
Nor any more to feel them as they fall;
But go, and if you trust her she will call.
There is the western gate, Luke Havergal—
Luke Havergal.

A un passant by Victor Hugo

Traveller, who at night, along the echoing street,
With thine uneasy dog, passest accompanied,
After the burning day, why onward walkst thou yet?
Where leadest thou so late the patient wearied steed?

Night! fearest thou not, far from farm house gate;
The robbers’ warning whistle to his mate?
Or those wehr-wolves that near the highway roam,
Heed not the horses’ heels, but stealthily creep,
And gain thy crupper with a sudden leap;
Mingling thy black blood with their fangs’ white foam?

Fear, above all, the wildfire’s erring lamp,
That, from the road, may lure thro’ marshes damp;
And, as it oft had wont, at nightfall gray;
Dreaming of cottage warmth and sounds of mirth;
And the great logs of welcome, on the hearth;
Lead thee towards lights that ever flit away.

Fear, lest thou meet a death dance, in the plain
When howling demons whirl, in storm and rain;
In walls accurs’d of God; profaned with their rites;
The magic tower deserted seems by day;
Hell knows its story—when the nightfall’s grey
Fills its old windows with unholy lights

Thou lonely traveller, where away so fast?
With thine uneasy dog, at night accompanied;
After the burning day, when rest inviteth thee;
Where leadest thou so late, thy patient weary steed?

The Listeners by Walter de la Mare

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
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.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Wilderspin by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

In the little red house by the river,
—When the short night fell,
Beside his web sat the weaver,
—Weaving a twisted spell.
Mary and the Saints deliver
—My soul from the nethermost Hell!

In the little red house by the rushes
—It grew not dark at all,
For day dawned over the bushes
—Before the night could fall.
Where now a torrent rushes,
—The brook ran thin and small.

In the little red house a chamber
—Was set with jewels fair;
There did a vine clamber
—Along the clambering stair,
And grapes that shone like amber
—Hung at the windows there.

Will the loom not cease whirring?
—Will the house never be still?
Is never a horseman stirring
—Out and about on the hill?
Was it the cat purring?
—Did some one knock at the sill?

To the little red house a rider
—Was bound to come that night.
A cup of sheeny cider
—Stood ready for his delight.
And like a great black spider,
—The weaver watched on the right.

To the little red house by the river
—I came when the short night fell.
I broke the web for ever,
—I broke my heart as well.
Michael and the Saints deliver
—My soul from the nethermost Hell!

Silent Hill by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Anne says she dreams sometimes – and so do I
About the child we saw go by.
In the late afternoon we saw her pass,
Slowly and without a sound. The deep grass
Bent before her, as where a soft wind goes.
Except we know that no wind ever blows
The dark deep grass on Silent Hill.

My grandma says that back before her day,
There was a fine house there upon the crest
Where now a blackened chimney leans to rest
Against the sky. And now and then nearby,
Like a leaf of ash, a dark bird drifts without a cry.
Nothing else goes there. No boy climbs up to play.
Even the wild deer seem to keep away.
But Anne is not afraid. And sometimes we go near
To listen to the soft hush, deep as fear,
Heavy smoke, that seems to hang there still,
Where only dreams walk now – on Silent Hill.

Anne says she dreams sometimes – and so do I –
About the child we saw go by,
On Silent Hill.

The Frightened Path by Abbie Farwell Brown

 

The wood grew very quiet

As the road made a sudden turn;

Then a wavering, furtive path crept out

From the tangled briar and fern.
“Where does it lead?” I asked the child;

She shivered and shook her head.

“It doesn’t lead to any place,

It is running away!” she said.
“It is running away on tiptoe

Through the untrodden grass,

To join the cheerful highroad,

Where real, live people pass.
“It runs from a heap of ruins

Where a home stood in old days;

But nothing living goes there now,

And — Nothing Living stays!”

The Lost Path by Elinor Wylie

I.

The garden’s full of scented wallflowers,
And, save that these stir faintly, nothing stirs;
Only a distant bell in hollow chime
Cried out just now for far-forgotten time,
And three reverberate words the great bell spoke.
The knocker’s made of brass, the door of oak,
And such a clamor must be loosed on air
By the knocker’s blow that knock I do not dare.
The silence is a spell, and if it break,
What things, that now lie sleeping, will awake?
II.

Are simple creatures lying there in cool
Sweet linen sheets, in slumber like the pool
Of moonlight white as water on the floor?
Will they come down laughing and unlock the door?
And will they draw me in, and let me sit
On the tall settle while the lamp is lit?
And shall I see their innocent clean lives
Shining as plainly as the plates and knives,
The blue bowls, and the brass cage with its bird?

III.

But listen! listen! surely something stirred
Within the house, and creeping down the halls
Draws close to me with sinister footfalls.
Will long pale fingers softly lift the latch,
And lead me up, under the osier thatch,
To a little room, a little secret room,
Hung with green arras picturing the doom,
The most disastrous death of some proud knight?
And shall I search the room by candle-light
And see, behind the curtains of my bed,
A murdered man who sleeps as sleep the dead?
IV.

Or will my clamorous knocking shake the trees
With lonely thunder through the stillnesses,
And then lie down–the coldest fear of all–
To nothing, and deliberate silence fall
On the house deep in the silence, and no one come
To door or window, staring blind and dumb?

The Ancient Track by H. P. Lovecraft

There was no hand to hold me back
That night I found the ancient track
Over the hill, and strained to see
The fields that teased my memory.
This tree, that wall—I knew them well,
And all the roofs and orchards fell
Familiarly upon my mind
As from a past not far behind.
I knew what shadows would be cast
When the late moon came up at last
From back of Zaman’s Hill, and how
The vale would shine three hours from now.
And when the path grew steep and high,
And seemed to end against the sky,
I had no fear of what might rest
Beyond that silhouetted crest.
Straight on I walked, while all the night
Grew pale with phosphorescent light,
And wall and farmhouse gable glowed
Unearthly by the climbing road.
There was the milestone that I knew—
“Two miles to Dunwich”—now the view
Of distant spire and roofs would dawn
With ten more upward paces gone. . . .

There was no hand to hold me back
That night I found the ancient track,
And reached the crest to see outspread
A valley of the lost and dead:
And over Zaman’s Hill the horn
Of a malignant moon was born,
To light the weeds and vines that grew
On ruined walls I never knew.
The fox-fire glowed in field and bog,
And unknown waters spewed a fog
Whose curling talons mocked the thought
That I had ever known this spot.
Too well I saw from the mad scene
That my loved past had never been—
Nor was I now upon the trail
Descending to that long-dead vale.
Around was fog—ahead, the spray
Of star-streams in the Milky Way. . . .
There was no hand to hold me back
That night I found the ancient track.

The Path by Walter de la Mare

Is it an abbey that I see
Hard-by that tapering poplar-tree,
Whereat that path hath end?
‘Tis wondrous still
That empty hill,
Yet calls me, friend.

Smooth is the turf, serene the sky,
The timeworn, crumbling roof awry;
Within that turret slim
Hangs there a bell
Whose faint notes knell?
Do colours dim

Burn in that angled window there,
Grass-green, and crimson, azure rare?
Would, from that narrow door,
One, looking in,
See, gemlike, shine
On walls and floor

Candles whose aureole flames must seem –
So still they burn – to burn in dream?
And do they cry, and say,
‘See, stranger; come!
Here is thy home;
No longer stray!’

Mildew by Charlotte Dacre

Behold, within that cavern drear and dank,
Whose walls in rainbow tints so dimly shine,
A wretch, with swollen eyes and tresses lank,
Does on a heap of mould’ring leaves recline.

Unwholsome dews for ever him surround,
From his damp couch he scarcely ever hies,
Save when blue vapours, issuing from the ground,
Lure him abroad, to catch them as they rise.

Or else at eve the dripping rock he loves,
Or the moist edge of new-dug grave, full well;
To get the sea spray too at night he roves,
And, gem’d with trickling drops, then seeks his cell.

Such his delights, his green and purple cheek,
His bloated form, his chill, discolour’d hand
He would not change; and if he guests would seek,
He steals among the church-yard’s grisly hand.