Monday, October 31, 2011

Have a Spooktacular Halloween! The Ghost of Goshen (Anonymous)


Through Goshen Hollow, where hemlocks grow,
Where rushing rills, with flash and flow,
Are over the rough rocks falling;
Where fox, where bear, and catamount hide,
In holes and dens In the mountain side,
A Circuit-preacher once used to ride,
And his name was Rufus Rawling.

He was set in his ways and what was strange,
If you argued with him he would not change,
One could get nothing through him.
Solemn and slow in style was he,
Slender and slim as a tamarack tree,
And always ready to disagree
With every one that knew him.

One night he saddled his sorrel mare,
And started over to Ripton, where
He had promised to do some preaching.
Away he cantered over the hill,
Past the schoolhouse at Capen's mill;
The moon was down and the place was still,
Save the sound of a night-hawk screeching.

At last he came to a deep ravine,
He felt a kind of queer, and mean
Sensation stealing o'er him.
Old Sorrel began to travel slow,
Then gave a snort and refused to go;
The parson chucked, and he holloa'd "whoa,"
And wondered what was before him.

Then suddenly he seemed to hear
A gurgling groan so very near,
It scattered his senses nearly.
"Go 'ome, go'ome," It loudly cried,
"Go 'ome," re-echoed the mountain side,
"Go 'ome," away In the distance died-
He wished he was home sincerely.

And then before his startled sight,
A light flashed out upon the night
That seemed to "beat all creation."
Then through the bushes a figure stole,
With eyes of fire and lips of coal,
That froze his blood and shook his soul
With horror and consternation.

He lost his sermon, he dropped his book,
His hair stood up, and his saddle shook
Like a sawmill under motion.
No cry he uttered, no word he said,
But, suddenly turning Sorrel's head,
Away and out of the woods he fled
As fast as he could for Goshen.

The ghost he saw and the rattling bones
Were a pumpkin, a gourd, and some gravel stones,
That gave him all that glory;
But ne'er again up that mountain side,
In the light would Rufus Rawling ride,
And many a time I've laughed till I cried
To hear him tell the story.
__________________________
Happy Halloween! Now for The Mad Doctor (1933),
starring Mickey Mouse

Enjoy!

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Portrait by a Neighbor (Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892-1950)


Before she has her floor swept
Or her dishes done,
Any day you'll find her
A-sunning in the sun!

It's long after midnight
Her key's in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
Till past ten o'clock!

She digs in her garden
With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
By the light of the moon.

She walks up the walk
Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
And pays you back cream!

Her lawn looks like a meadow,
And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
And the Queen Anne's lace!

__________________________
From A Few Figs From Thistles, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1922. p. 28-29.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Bonnie George Campbell (Anonymous)


Hie upon Hielands,
and laigh upon Tay,
Bonnie George Campbell
rode out on a day.

Saddled and bridled
and booted rade he;
Toom* hame cam' the saddle,
but never cam' he.

Down cam' his auld mither,
greetin' fu' sair,
And down cam' his bonny wife,
wringin' her hair:--

"My meadow lies green,
and my corn is unshorn,
My barn is to build
and my babe is unborn."

Saddled and bridled
and booted rade he,
Toom hame cam' the saddle
but never cam' he.

_______________________
*Toom = empty

Friday, October 28, 2011

To Autumn (John Keats, 1795-1821)


1

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
1819

Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Song of Wandering Aengus (William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939)


I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
--From The Wind Among the Reeds, 1899.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Invective Against Swans (Wallace Stevens, 1879-1955)


The soul, O ganders, flies beyond the parks
And far beyond the discords of the wind.

A bronze rain from the sun descending marks
The death of summer, which that time endures

Like one who scrawls a listless testament
Of golden quirks and Paphian caricatures,

Bequeathing your white feathers to the moon
And giving your bland motions to the air.

Behold, already on the long parades
The crows anoint the statues with their dirt.

And the soul, O ganders, being lonely, flies
Beyond your chilly chariots, to the skies.
--From Harmonium (1923)

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Frog (Hilaire Belloc, 1870-1953)


Be kind and tender to the Frog,
And do not call him names,
As "Slimy skin," or "Polly-wog,"
Or likewise "Ugly James,"

Or "Gap-a-grin," or "Toad-gone-wrong,"
Or "Bill Bandy-knees":
The Frog is justly sensitive
To epithets like these.

No animal will more repay
A treatment kind and fair;
At least so lonely people say
Who keep a frog (and, by the way,
They are extremely rare).

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