The Haunted Hour | Page 7

a white cloud, nothing more,
Slow drifting by my
door,
Or gardened lilies swaying in the wind;
Then suddenly each
separate face I knew,
The tender lovers drifting two and two,
Old,
peaceful folk long since passed out of mind,
And little children--one
whose hand held still
An earth-grown daffodil.
And here I saw one pausing for a space
To lift a wistful face
Up to
a certain window where there dreamed
A little brood left motherless;
and there
One turned to where the unploughed fields lay bare;
And
others lingering passed--but one there seemed
So over glad to haste,
she scarce could wait
To reach the churchyard gate!
The farrier's little maid who loved too well
And died--I may not tell

How glad she seemed. My neighbors, young and old,
With
backward glances lingered as they went;
Only upon one face was all
content,
A sorrow comforted--a peace untold.
I watched them
through the swinging gate--the dawn
Stayed till the last had gone.
A BALLAD OF HALLOWE'EN: THEODOSIA GARRISON
All night the wild wind on the heath
Whistled its song of vague
alarms;
All night in some mad dance of death
The poplars tossed

their naked arms.
Mignon Isa hath left her bed
And bared her shoulders to the blast;

The long procession of the dead
Stared at her as it passed.
"Oh, there, methinks, my mother smiled,
And there my father walks
forlorn,
And there the little nameless child
That was the parish
scorn.
"And there my olden comrades move,
And there my sister smiles
apart,
But nowhere is the fair, false love
That bent and broke my
heart.
"Oh, false in life, oh, false in death,
Wherever thy mad spirit be,

Could it not come this night," she saith,
"And keep tryst with me?"
Mignon Isa has turned alone,
Bitter the pain and long the years;
The
moonlight on the old gravestone
Was warmer than her tears.
All night the wild wind on the heath
Whistled its song of vague
alarms;
All night in some mad dance of death
The poplars tossed
their naked arms.
THE FORGOTTEN SOUL: MARGARET WIDDEMER
'Twas I that cried against the pane on All Souls' Night
(O pulse of my
heart's life, how could you never hear?)
You filled the room I knew
with yellow candlelight
And cheered the lass beside you when she
cried in fear.
'Twas I that went beside you in the gray wood-mist
(O core of my
heart's heart, how could you never know?)
You only frowned and
shuddered as you bent and kissed
The lass hard by you, handfast, as I
used to go.
'Twas I that stood to greet you on the churchyard pave
(O fire of my

heart's grief, how could you never see?)
You smiled in careless
dreaming as you crossed my grave
And hummed a little love-song
where they buried me!
ALL-SOULS' NIGHT: DORA SIGERSON
O mother, mother, I swept the hearth, I set his chair
and the white board spread,
I prayed for his coming to our kind Lady
when Death's
doors would let out the dead;
A strange wind rattled the window-pane,
and down the
lane a dog howled on,
I called his name and the candle flame burnt
dim, pressed
a hand the door-latch upon.
Deelish! Deelish! my woe forever that I
could not sever
coward flesh from fear.
I called his name and the pale ghost came;
but I was
afraid to meet my dear.
O mother, mother, in tears I checked the sad hours past
of the year that's o'er,
Till by God's grace I might see his face and
hear the
sound of his voice once more;
The chair I set from the cold and wet,
he took when he
came from unknown skies
Of the land of the dead, on my bent brown
head I felt
the reproach of his saddened eyes;
I closed my lids on my heart's

desire, crouched by the fire,
my voice was dumb.
At my clean-swept hearth he had no mirth, and
at my
table he broke no crumb.
Deelish! Deelish! my woe forever that I
could not sever
coward flesh from fear.
His chair put aside when the young cock
cried, and I
was afraid to meet my dear.
JANET'S TRYST: GEORGE MACDONALD
"Sweep up the flure, Janet,
Put on anither peat.
It's a lown and
starry nicht, Janet,
And neither cold nor weet.
And it's open hoose we keep the nicht
For ony that may be oot;
It's
the nicht atween the Sancts an' Souls
Whan the bodiless gang aboot.
Set the chairs back to the wall, Janet,
Mak' ready for quaiet fowk,

Hae a' thing as clean as a windin'-sheet--
They comena ilka ook.
There's a spale upo' the flure, Janet,
And there's a rowan berry.

Sweep them into the fire, Janet,--
They'll be welcomer than merry.
Syne set open the door, Janet,--
Wide open for wha kens wha:
As
ye come to your bed, Janet,
Set it open to the wa'."
She set the chairs back to the wa',
But ane made of the birk,
She
swept the flure, but left ane spale,
A long spale o' the aik.
The nicht was lown, and the stars sat still
A-glintin' doon the sky:

And the sauls crept oot o' their mooly graves,
A' dank wi'