Halloween from Harper’s Weekly 1895

Halloween

Now, when the owl makes wild ado

With his sad tu-whit tu-who,

‘Tis the night for erie [sic] things,

When shadows from unearthly wings

Born in umbrageous solitude

Gloom the meadow and the wood.

 

But still around the rustic fire,

In spite of spirits dark and dire,

Is headed a joyful, frolic house

Of half a score of girls and boys

Over the nut and apple games

Commingled with their mate names.

 

Others-although the chimney roars

Its ancient welcome – out-of-doors

Run to the oat-stack or the barn;

Untwisting, some, a ball of yarn;

Or seeking in the spectral brook

Some telltale apparition’s look.

No end of schemes were there of old

By which love’s tender charms were told;

And still may fairies intervene

To bless the fates of Halloween.

–from Harper’s Weekly, Vol  39, No. 2033, December 7, 1895, p. 1069.