Halloween Poems

'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock ;
Tu--whit !-- -- Tu--whoo !
And hark, again ! the crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew.

...Samuel Taylor Coleridge
From the poem "Cristabel" (1798)



*****

In tombs of gold and lapis lazuli
Bodies of holy men and women exude
Miraculous oil, odour of violet.

But under heavy loads of trampled clay
Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood;
Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.

...William Butler Yeats
Oil and Blood (1933)

*****

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint an curious volume of forgotten lore--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As if some one gently rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--"

...Edgar Allan Poe

*****

Double, double, toll and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake
In the cauldron boil and bake.

...Shakespeare
Macbeth

*****

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were withering and sere-
It was night in the lonesome October

...Edgar Allan Poe
Ulalume: A Ballad

*****

She thinks of bones
And grinning skulls and corruptible death
Wrapped in his shroud; and now fancies she hears
Deep sighs and sees pale, sickly ghosts gliding

...William Blake
Fair Elenor