"Mr. Macklin's Jack O'Lantern" (A Poem)

Born in 1897, David Thompson Watson McCord was the associate editor for the Harvard Alumni Bulletin, executive director of the Harvard College Fund, and is best known for his numerous anthologies of children's poetry, including Far and Few (1952), Away and Go (1975), and All Small (1986). Many like "Mr. Macklin's Jack O'Lantern" examine the everyday mundane with childlike wonderment.

 

Mr. Macklin takes his knife

And carves the yellow pumpkin face:

Three holes bring eyes and nose to life,

The mouth has thirteen teeth in place.

Then Mr. Macklin just for fun

Transfers the corn-cob pipe from his

Wry mouth to Jack’s, and everyone

Dies laughing! Oh What fun it is

Till Mr. Macklin draws the shade

And lights the candle in Jack’s skull

Then all the inside dark is made

As spooky and as horrorful

As Halloween, and creepy crawl

The shadows on the tool-house floor,

With Jack’s face dancing on the wall.

O Mr. Macklin! where’s the door? [1]

 

Works Referenced

 

McCord, David Thompson Watson. "Mr. Macklin's Jack O'Lantern." Far and Few: Rhymes of the Never Was and Always Is. New York: Little and Brown, 1952. 46.

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[1] McCord, 46.