'Ghost House," by Robert Frost

I Dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.

O'er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.

I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
On that disused and forgotten road
That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;

The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about:
I hear him begin far enough away
Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out.

It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
Who share the unlit place with me--
Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar.

They are tireless folk, but slow and sad,
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,--
With none among them that ever sings,
And yet, in view of how many things,
As sweet companions as might be had.

(1915)

'The Apparition,' by John Donne

When by thy scorn, O murd'ress, I am dead,
And that thou thinkst thee free
From all solicitation from me,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, feign'd vestal, in worse arms shall see :
Then thy sick taper will begin to wink,
And he, whose thou art then, being tired before,
Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think
Thou call'st for more,
And, in false sleep, will from thee shrink :
And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie,
A verier ghost than I.
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee ; and since my love is spent,
I'd rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.

(1633)

'The Cremation of Sam McGee,' by Robert Service

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold, till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead — it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you, to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows — Oh God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared — such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear, you'll let in the cold and storm —
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

(1907)

'Alone,' by Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were -- I have not seen
As others saw -- I could not bring
My passions from a common spring --
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow -- I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone --
And all I lov'd -- I lov'd alone --
Then -- in my childhood -- in the dawn
Of a most stormy life -- was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still --
From the torrent, or the fountain --
From the red cliff of the mountain --
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold --
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by --
From the thunder, and the storm --
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view --

(1829)

'our big day at the movies,' Charles Bukowski

it was during the Depression and the Saturday
matinee was for children and we stood in
long lines a good hour before the theater even
opened.
there was always a double feature but one
was an adult movie which they
featured first before we got to see our
Buck Rogers space movie.

the movie houses in those days were imposing
and clean with high curved ceilings and
fancy columns and the seats were big
and soft and the rugs in the aisles were red
and thick and there was always an usher or
usherette with a flashlight as we sat with jawbreaker
candy in our mouths and waited.

the adult movie was usually pure agony and
at the time there was an endless series of films
featuring Fred and Ginger, we saw movie after dreadful
movie of them dancing for hours, it was really
terrible, headache bad.
he wore shiny black shoes and a fancy coat
with long tails, the coattails flying
as he pranced and tap-danced.
he would leap on tables or dance along the
rail of a balcony far above the street below
and he had this little fixed smile on his
face, and she danced too, the blonde with
curly hair, she followed him in lockstep and
now and then he would toss her in the
air while she maintained a pleased and adoring expression
on her face.

there was always a minor plot in the movie, little bits of
trouble would arrive and to cure every-
thing he would begin dancing with
her, that was the answer, the solution.
sometimes they even kissed and we would
all look away and groan in disgust.

he was somebody to despise with his
sunken little face and thinning
hair and weak chin and sharp nose, always just
dancing, dancing, dancing
like someone gone mad.
I had never seen any man like that living
in our neighborhood;
our fathers would have run him off!
the lady wasn't so bad, she was
kind of pretty but stupid to fall
for a fellow like that.
sometimes those movies got so bad
that just for relief a couple of the boys
would get into a fight but the ushers
always quickly stopped it.

yes, it was agony watching those dancers
especially when they kissed
but it would finally end and then there
was a cartoon, Popeye, he'd eat a
can of spinach and punch out some
big ugly guy.
the ugly guy looked more like our fathers
than that dancing freak ever did.

our movie would come on then and
we'd really start to live! space
machines, space wars, the evil
Villain of Space and also his evil
Sidekick and Buck Rogers would
be captured and chained
in a dungeon somewhere
but somehow he always finally got
away.
some of the space guns were
terrific, they'd shoot rays
and people would just vanish
in a flash
and the beautiful rocket ships would
shoot through space and there were
tremendous battles between
Buck Rogers and the Villain
space ships (they were terrible like
hungry sharks and evil looking).
there was tension, fierce tension,
and then some new and horrible
development would suddenly take place
which Buck Rogers would some-
how overcome.
Buck always survived.
although he really had us worried
at times-like when he was
chained to this metal table with a
giant circular saw creeping closer
and closer.
there were many such narrow
escapes.

and then it would all be over
and we'd have to go back to our own lives,
to our parents, to whatever Depression dinner
they had managed to prepare.
but during those Saturday evenings
after the movies
we all felt different somehow,
strange, a little unreal, watching
our parents eat and converse,
our parents,
those people that had never experienced
anything exciting or real,
who seemed hardly alive,
the were almost as boring as
that kissing dancer with his flying
coattails
but not quite,
nothing could ever be
as bad as
that.

(2003)