[Roger Slater]

"This living hand, now warm and capable"
by John Keats

This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calm’d -–see here it is–-
I hold it towards you.

[Gail White]

My favorite Ghost Poem: "Old Christmas Morning" by Roy Helton

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/poet...s_morning.html

[Orwn Acra]

To My Cup-Bearer

A lady or a tiger-lily,
Can you tell me which,
I see her when I wake at night,
Incanting, like a witch.
Her eye is dark, her vestment rich,
Embroidered with a silver stitch,
A lady or a tiger-lily,
Slave, come tell me which?

Marianne Moore

[Mary Meriam]

Thanks for that Moore, Walter. Totally fab.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Let Evening Come

Let Evening Come



By Jane Kenyon 1947–1995 Jane Kenyon
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

[Orwn Acra]

Originally Posted by Mary Meriam

Thanks for that Moore, Walter. Totally fab.

One of my favorites by her and one of her earliest. Cup-bearers were the king's servants who tasted his libations for poison, so the speaker is either crazy or has been betrayed and poisoned with hallucinogenics--or there really is a woman there. I love the possibilities presented in such a short poem.

[Woody Long]

Another well known one here.

— Woody

[Gail White]

Just before the Big Night, one last haunted place:

www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_woods.htm

[Michael F]

I immediately thought of this one, natch:


670

One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted—
One need not be a House—
The Brain has Corridors—surpassing
Material Place—

Far safer, of a Midnight Meeting
External Ghost
Than its interior Confronting—
That Cooler Host.

Far safer, through an Abbey gallop,
The Stones a'chase—
Than Unarmed, one's self encounter—
In lonesome Place—

Ourself behind ourself, concealed—
Should startle most—
Assassin hid in our Apartment
Be Horror's least.

The Body—borrows a Revolver—
He bolts the Door—
O'erlooking a superior spectre—
Or More—

[Ann Drysdale]

Until I started to work with compositors, I believed the Em-dash was named after that lady.