Happy Hallowe'en!

"Hark! Hark to the wind! 'T is the night, they say,
When all the 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,
O 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?"

-Sheard: Hallowe'en.


Hallowe'en

A gypsy flame is on the hearth,
Sign of this carnival of mirth.
Through the dun fields and from the glade
Flash merry folk in masquerade-
It is the witching Hallowe'en.

Pale tapers glimmer in the sky,
The dead and dying leaves go by;
Dimly across the faded green
Strange shadows, stranger shades, are seen,-
It is the mystic Hallowe'en.

Soft gusts of love and memory
Beat at the heart reproachfully;
The lights that burn for those who die
Were flickering low, let them flare high-
It is the haunting Hallowe'en.

-A.F. Murray in Harper's Weekly, Oct. 30, 1909


Happy Halloween!