Hallowe'en

There is an old Italian legend which says that on the eve of the beloved festival of All Saints (Hallowe'en) the souls of the dead return to earth for a little while and go by on the wind. The feast of All Saints is followed by the feast of the dead, when for a day only the sound of the Miserere is heard throughout the cities of Italy.


Hark! Hark to the wind! 'Tis the night, they say,
When all souls come back from the far away -
The dead, forgotten this many a day!

And the dead remembered - ay! long and well -
And the little children whose spirits dwell
In God's green garden of asphodel.

Have you reached the country of all content,
0 souls we know, since the day you went
From this time-worn world, where your years were spent?

Would you come back to the sun and the rain,
The sweetness, the strife, the thing we call pain,
And then unravel life's tangle again?

I lean to the dark - Hush! - was it a sigh?
Or the painted vine-leaves that rustled by?
Or only a night-bird's echoing cry?

Virna Sheard

Virna Sheard was a Canadian poet and novelist associated with the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She gained recognition for her poetry collections such as 'The Miracle, and Other Poems' and 'A Sea of Sunset'. Her work often explored themes of love, spirituality, and the natural world. Apart from poetry, she also wrote several novels that contributed significantly to Canadian literature of her time.

Virna Sheard

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Virna Sheard, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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The Eve Of All-Saints.

1.

This is the tale they tell,
Of an Hallowe'en;
This is the thing that befell
Me and the village Belle,
Beautiful Aimee Dean.


2.

Did I love her? God and she,
They know and I!
And love was the life of me
Whatever else may be,
Would God that I could die!


3.

That All-Saints' eve was dim;
The frost lay white
Under strange stars and a slim
Moon in the graveyard grim,
An Autumn ghost of light.


4.

They told her: "Go alone,
With never a word,
To the burial plot's unknown
Grave with the grayest stone,
When the clock on twelve is heard;


5.

"Three times around it pass,
With never a sound;
Each time a wisp of grass
And myrtle pluck, an...

Madison Julius Cawein

On All Souls' Eve

Oh, the garden ways are lonely!
Winds that bluster, winds that shout,
Battle with the strong laburnum,
Toss the sad brown leaves about.
In the gay herbaceous border,
Now a scene of wild disorder,
The last dear hollyhock has flamed his
crimson glory out.

Yet, upon this night of longing,
Souls are all abroad, they say.
Will they come, the dazzling blossoms,
That were here but yesterday?
Will the ghosts of radiant roses
And my sheltered lily-closes
Hold once more their shattered fragrance
now November's on her way?

Wallflowers, surely you'll remember,
Pinks, recall it, will you not?
How I loved and watched and tended,
Made this ground a hallowed spot:
Pansies, with the soft meek faces,
Harebells, with a thousand graces:
D...

Fay Inchfawn

Halloween.

It was down in the woodland on last Hallowe'en,
Where silence and darkness had built them a lair,
That I felt the dim presence of her, the unseen,
And heard her still step on the ghost-haunted air.

It was last Hallowe'en in the glimmer and swoon
Of mist and of moonlight that thickened and thinned,
That I saw the gray gleam of her eyes in the moon,
And hair, like a raven, blown wild in the wind.

It was last Hallowe'en where starlight and dew
Made mystical marriage on flower and leaf,
That she led me with looks of a love that I knew,
And lured with the voice of a heart-buried grief.

It was last Hallowe'en in the forest of dreams,
Where trees are eidolons and shadows have eyes,
That I saw her pale face like the foam of far streams,
And heard, like th...

Madison Julius Cawein

Lines Written In The Belief That The Ancient Roman Festival Of The Dead Was Called Ambarvalia

Swings the way still by hollow and hill,
And all the world's a song;
"She's far," it sings me, "but fair," it rings me,
"Quiet," it laughs, "and strong!"

Oh! spite of the miles and years between us,
Spite of your chosen part,
I do remember; and I go
With laughter in my heart.

So above the little folk that know not,
Out of the white hill-town,
High up I clamber; and I remember;
And watch the day go down.

Gold is my heart, and the world's golden,
And one peak tipped with light;
And the air lies still about the hill
With the first fear of night;

Till mystery down the soundless valley
Thunders, and dark is here;
And the wind blows, and the light goes,
And the night is full of fear,

And I know, one night, on some fa...

Rupert Brooke

Hallowmas

All hushed of glee,
The last chill bee
Clings wearily
To the dying aster.

The leaves drop faster:
And all around, red as disaster,
The forest crimsons with tree on tree.

A butterfly,
The last to die,
Wings heavily by,
Weighed down with torpor.

The air grows sharper;
And the wind in the trees, like some sad harper,
Sits and sorrows with sigh on sigh.

The far crows call;
The acorns fall;
And over all
The Autumn raises
Dun mists and hazes,
Through which her soul, it seemeth, gazes
On ghosts and dreams in carnival.

The end is near;
The dying Year
Leans low to hear
Her own heart breaking,
And Beauty taking
Her flight, and all my dreams forsaking
My soul, bowed down 'mid the sad and...

Madison Julius Cawein

Dead Man's Morrice

There came a crowder to the Mermaid Inn,
    One dark May night,
Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din,
    With quaint delight,
It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do,
    A phantom strain:
Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
    And look in vain.

In that old wood, where ghosts of lovers walk,
    At fall of day,
Gleaning such fragments of their ancient talk
    As poor ghosts may,
From leaves that brushed their faces, wet with dew,
    Or tears, or rain,...
Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
    And look in vain.

Have we not seen them--pale forgotten shades
    That do return,
Groping for those dim paths, those fragrant glades,
    Those nooks of fern,
Only to find that, of the may ...

Alfred Noyes