~ Spooks ~

SPOOKS

Oh, I went down to Framingham
To site on a graveyard wall;
"If there be spooks," I said to myself,
"I shall see them, on and all."

I hugged the knee to still the heart,
My gaze on a tomb 'neath a tree.
Down in the village the clock struck nine
But never a ghost did I see.

A boy passed by and his hair was red,
He paused by a sunken mound.
"How goes it with all the ghosts," said he,
have you heard any walking around?"

Now the taunt was the sign of the boy's disdain
For the study I did pursue.
So I took the hour to teach that lad
Of the things unseen but true.

I talked of howler, banshee, ghoul
The gristly and the lean.
I sat on that graveyard wall and told
of all the things I had never seen.

And suddenly a bat swung by
Two cats began to bawl,
And that red-haired boy walked off in haste
When I needed him most of all.

I lost a slipper as I fled―
I bumped against a post,
But nevertheless I knew I'd won
The secret of raising a ghost.

And the method is this―at least for a miss,
You must sit on a graveyard wall,
And talk of the things you never have seen
And you'll see them, one and all.

The Singing Crow and Other Poems, by Nathalia Crane.
Illustrated by Mac Harshberger.
New York, Albert & Charles Boni, 1926.

Happy Halloween !