"Halloween" (A Poem)

The Halloween of the Victorian era differed slightly from our modern version. For the Victorians, the holiday was a night of pleasant gatherings, where friends and family members feasted on hand-made treats, recounted ghostly tales around the fireplace, and played parlor games that predicted the future.[1] Costumes, trick-or-treating, and macabre decorations would come decades later in the 1900s.[2] Published in Harper’s Weekly in 1895, this short poem captures the essence of the Victorian Halloween, complete with rustic fires and games of divination.

Now, when the owl makes wild ado
With his sad tu-whit tu-who,
‘Tis the night for erie 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 heard a joyful, frolic noise
Of half a score of girls and boys
Over the nut and apple games
Commingled with their mated names.

Others – although the chimney roars
In 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.[3]  

Works Referenced

Bannatyne, Lesley Pratt. Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., 1990.

“Halloween.” Harper’s Weekly 39.2033 (1895): 1069.
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[1] Bannatyne, 111-116.
[2] Bannatyne, 116-120.
[3] “Halloween,” 1069.