Tag: Ghosts

Phantom by Guanetta Grant Gordon

Last night when the moon was free
I sent a breeze as messenger
To brush a kiss across your lips.
Did you turn your head, alert
Because it ruffled up your hair
So like my fingers, light as air?
Did you close your eyes to dream
And hear the rustle of the leaves?
It was my echo, whispering
My heart, my soul, belong to you!
And always, when the moon hangs low
Should you but pause and wish for me
You will feel my presence near,
Lingering in every shadow
Beneath the pale moonglow of night.

Clair de Lune by Claude Houghton

Pallid ghosts and phantoms frail,
Fancies born of vague regrets,
‘Neath a moon divinely pale
Whisper words the dawn forgets;
Ghosts of pain and ghosts of pleasure
Glide in graceful rhythmic measure.

Vanished days and dead desires,
Perished hopes and faded dreams,
To the magic sound of lyres
Glide amid the moon’s gray beams;
Glide and beckon, whisper lightly,
Vanish slowly, glimmering whitely.

Ghosts by Madison Cawein

Low, weed-climbed cliffs, o’er which at noon
The sea-mists swoon:
Wind-twisted pines, through which the crow
Goes winging slow:

Dim fields the sower never sows,
Or reaps or mows:
And near the sea a ghostly house of stone
Where all is old and lone.

A garden, falling in decay,
Where statues gray
Peer, broken, out of tangled weed
And thorny seed;

Satyr and Nymph, that once made love
By walk and grove:
And, near a fountain, shattered, green with mould,
A sundial, lichen-old.

Like some sad life bereft,
To musing left,
The house stands: love and youth
Both gone, in sooth:

But still it sits and dreams:
And round it seems
Some memory of the past, still young and fair,
Haunting each crumbling stair.

And suddenly one dimly sees,
Come through the trees,
A woman, like a wild moss-rose:
A man, who goes

Softly: and by the dial
They kiss a while:
Then drowsily the mists blow round them, wan,
And they like ghosts are gone.

The Warning, from Death’s Jest Book by Thomas Lovell Beddoes

As sudden thunder
Pierces night;
As magic wonder,
Wild affright,
Rives asunder
Men’s delight:
Our ghost, our corpse and we
Rise to be.

As flies the lizard
Serpent fell;
As goblin vizard,
At the spell
Of pale wizard,
Sinks to hell:
Our life, our laugh, our lay
Pass away.

As wake the morning
Trumpets bright;
As snow-drop, scorning
Winter’s might,
Rises warning
Like a sprite:
We buried, dead, and slain
Rise again.

The Ballad of the White Glow by Itzik Manger

 

“You’ve grieved enough, my daughter dear,

You’ve mourned enough, your woe.”

“Mother, see, in the depth of night—

A cool, white glow.”
“It’s a will-o’-the-wisp, my daughter,

A will-o’-the-wisp, be sure.

May it always wander the empty fields

And come here nevermore.”
“It cannot be a will-o’-the-wisp,

It may not be false fire,

Because my heart, in that cool glow,

Is throbbing with desire.”
“Say your prayer, my daughter.

I cannot understand—”

“Mother, the white glow calling me

Calls from the beyond.

What shall I say to my urgent heart?

Shall I refuse to go?

If it is my heart calling,

Shall I answer, “No?”
The storm is blowing out of doors,

Outside there whirls the snow.

“Wait one moment more, white light.

One moment and I’ll go.”
Quickly, quickly, she takes up

Her little crimson shawl.

Her own blood is a brighter red—

The look of death is pale.
Long, long at the windowpane

Her mother sees her go,

Until the virgin silhouette

Fades in the pallid glow.

A Dream by William Allingham

I heard the dogs howl in the moonlight night;
I went to the window to see the sight;
All the Dead that ever I knew
Going one by one and two by two.

On they pass’d, and on they pass’d;
Townsfellows all, from first to last;
Born in the moonlight of the lane,
Quench’d in the heavy shadow again.

Schoolmates, marching as when they play’d
At soldiers once – but now more staid;
Those were the strangest sight to me
Who were drown’d, I knew, in the awful sea.

Straight and handsome folk, bent and weak, too;
Some that I loved, and gasp’d to speak to;
Some but a day in their churchyard bed;
Some that I had not known were dead.

A long, long crowd – where each seem’d lonely,
Yet of them all there was one, one only,
Raised a head or look’d my way;
She linger’d a moment – she might not stay.

How long since I saw that fair pale face!
Ah! Mother dear! might I only place
My head on thy breast, a moment to rest,
While thy hand on my tearful cheek were prest!

On, on, a moving bridge they made
Across the moon-stream, from shade to shade,
Young and old, women and men;
Many long-forgot, but remembered then,

And first there came a bitter laughter;
A sound of tears a moment after;
And then a music so lofty and gay,
That eve morning, day by day,
I strive to recall it if I may.

A Frosty Night by Robert Graves

“Alice, dear, what ails you,
Dazed and lost and shaken?
Has the chill night numbed you?
Is it fright you have taken?”

“Mother, I am very well,
I was never better.
Mother, do not hold me so,
Let me write my letter.”

“Sweet, my dear, what ails you?”
“No, but I am well.
The night was cold and frosty –
There’s no more to tell.”

“Ay, the night was frosty,
Coldly gaped the moon,
Yet the birds seemed twittering
Through green boughs of June.

“Soft and thick the snow lay,
Stars danced in the sky –
Not all the lambs of May-day
Skip so bold and high.

“Your feet were dancing, Alice,
Seemed to dance on air,
You looked a ghost or angel
In the star-light there.

“Your eyes were frosted star-light;
Your heart, fire and snow.
Who was it said, ‘I love you’?”
“Mother, let me go!”

The Shadow by Madison Julius Cawein

I
Mother, mother, what is that gazing through the darkness?
What is that that looks at me with its awful eyes?
Tell me, mother, what it is, freezing me to starkness?
Through the house it seems to go with its icy sighs,
What is that, oh, what is that, mother, in the darkness?

II
Child, my child! my little child! ‘tis a waving willow,
That the night wind bows and sways near the window-pane:
Here’s my breast, my little son. Let it be your pillow.
Have no fear, love, in my arms. Go to sleep again.
Go to sleep and turn your face from the windy willow.

III
Mother, mother, what is that? going round and round there?
Round the house and at the door stops and turns the knob.
Hold me close, O mother love! keep me from that sound there!
Hear it how it’s knocking now? Don’t you hear it sob?
Guard me from the ghostly thing that goes round and round there.

IV
Child, my child! my little child! ’tis the wind that wanders:
‘Tis the wandering wind that knocks, crying at the door.
Hark no more and heed no more what the night wind maunders.
Rest your head on mother’s heart, list its faery lore.
Go to sleep and have no fear of the wind that wanders.

V
Mother, mother, look and see! what is that that stands there?
With its lantern face and limbs, mantled all in black!
Gaunt and grim and horrible with its knuckled hands there!
Now before me! now beside me! now behind my back!
Mother! mother! face it now! ask it why it stands there!

VI
Child, my child! my little child! ’tis a shadow only!
Shadow of the lamp-shade here near your little bed!
No! it will not come again when the night lies lonely.
Sleep, oh, sleep, my little son. See! the thing is fled.
Mother will not leave her boy with that shadow only….

VII
Will he live? or will he die? Answer; fearful Shadow!
O thou Death who hoverest near, hold thy hands away!
Oh, that night were past and light lay on hill and meadow!
Does he sleep? or is he dead? God! that it were day!
Light to help my love to fight with that crouching shadow!

A Chilly Night by Christina Rossetti

I rose at the dead of night
And went to the lattice alone
To look for my Mother’s ghost
Where the ghostly moonlight shone.

My friends had failed one by one,
Middleaged, young, and old,
Till the ghosts were warmer to me
Than my friends that had grown cold.

I looked and I saw the ghosts
Dotting plain and mound:
They stood in the blank moonlight
But no shadow lay on the ground;
They spoke without a voice
And they leapt without a sound.

I called: “O my Mother dear,” –
I sobbed: “O my Mother kind,
Make a lonely bed for me
And shelter it from the wind:

“Tell the others not to come
To see me night or day;
But I need not tell my friends
To be sure to keep away.”

My Mother raised her eyes,
They were blank and could not see;
Yet they held me with their stare
While they seemed to look at me.

She opened her mouth and spoke,
I could not hear a word
While my flesh crept on my bones
And every hair was stirred.

She knew that I could not hear
The message that she told
Whether I had long to wait
Or soon should sleep in the mould:
I saw her toss her shadowless hair
And wring her hands in the cold.

I strained to catch her words
And she strained to make me hear,
But never a sound of words
Fell on my straining ear.

From midnight to the cockcrow
I kept my watch in pain
While the subtle ghosts grew subtler
In the sad night on the wane.

From midnight to the cockcrow
I watched till all were gone,
Some to sleep in the shifting sea
And some under turf and stone:
Living had failed and dead had failed
And I was indeed alone.

A Nightmare by Christina Rossetti

I have a friend in ghostland –
Early found, ah me, how early lost! –
Blood-red seaweeds drip along that coastland
By the strong sea wrenched and tossed.
In every creek there slopes a dead man’s islet,
And such an one in every bay;
All unripened in the unended twilight:
For there comes neither night nor day.

Unripe harvest there hath none to reap it
From the watery misty place;
Unripe vineyard there hath none to keep it
In unprofitable space.
Living flocks and herds are nowhere found there;
Only ghosts in flocks and shoals:
Indistinguished hazy ghosts surround there
Meteors whirling on their poles;
Indistinguished hazy ghosts abound there;
Troops, yea swarms, of dead men’s souls. –

Have they towns to live in? –
They have towers and towns from sea to sea;
Of each town the gates are seven;
Of one of these each ghost is free.
Civilians, soldiers, seamen,
Of one town each ghost is free:
They are ghastly men those ghostly freemen:
Such a sight may you not see. –

How know you that your lover
Of death’s tideless waters stoops to drink? –
Me by night doth mouldy darkness cover,
It makes me quake to think:
All night long I feel his presence hover
Thro’ the darkness black as ink.

Without a voice he tells me
The wordless secrets of death’s deep:
If I sleep, his trumpet voice compels me
To stalk forth in my sleep:
If I wake, he hunts me like a nightmare;
I feel my hair stand up, my body creep:
Without light I see a blasting sight there,
See a secret I must keep.