Practice: Poems of Horror
The Moor Ghost
–Robert E. Howard
They hauled him to the crossroads
As day was at its close;
They hung him to the gallows
And left him for the crows.
His hands in life were bloody,
His ghost will not be still
He haunts the naked moorlands
About the gibbet hill.
And oft a lonely traveler Is found upon the fen
Whose dead eyes hold a horror
Beyond the world of men.
The villagers then whisper,
With accents grim and dour:
“This man has met at midnight
The phantom of the moor.”
*
The Witch
By Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
I HAVE walked a great while over the snow,
And I am not tall nor strong.
My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set,
And the way was hard and long.
I have wandered over the fruitful earth,
But I never came here before.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!The cutting wind is a cruel foe.
I dare not stand in the blast.
My hands are stone, and my voice a groan,
And the worst of death is past.
I am but a little maiden still,
My little white feet are sore.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!Her voice was the voice that women have,
Who plead for their heart’s desire.
She came–she came–and the quivering flame
Sunk and died in the fire.
It never was lit again on my hearth
Since I hurried across the floor,
To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door.