Halloween Horror: Robert Bloch’s “The Seal of the Satyr”
“For, staring down at himself, Roger Talquist had seen the face and the figure of the wood god Pan!”–Robert Bloch (The Seal of the Satyr)
Category: edgarallanpoe
The Best Halloween Poems–Episode 30: T. S. Salmon’s “Stonehenge”
“WRAPT in the veil of time’s unbroken gloom,
Obscure as death and silent as the tomb,
Where cold oblivion holds her dusky reign,
Frowns the dark pile on Sarum’s lonely plain.”–T. S. Salmon (Stonehenge)
The Best Halloween Poems–Episode 29: Alexander Posey’s “On Viewing the Skull and Bones of a Wolf”
“How savage, fierce and grim!
His bones are bleached and white.
But what is death to him?
He grins as if to bite.
He mocks the fate
That bade, ”Begone.”
There’s fierceness stamped
In ev’ry bone.
Let silence settle from the midnight sky—
Such silence as you’ve broken with your cry;
The bleak wind howl, unto the ut’most verge
Of this mighty waste, thy fitting dirge.”–Alexander Lawrence Posey (On Viewing the Skull and Bones of a Wolf)
Halloween Horror: Robert Bloch’s “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper”
“Suppose Jack the Ripper didn’t grow old? Suppose he is still a young man today?
“It’s a crazy theory, I grant you,” he said. “All the theories about the Ripper are crazy. The idea that he was a doctor. Or a maniac. Or a woman. The reasons advanced for such beliefs are flimsy enough. There’s nothing to go by. So why should my notion be any worse?”
“Because people grow older,” I reasoned with him. “Doctors, maniacs, and women alike.”
–Robert Bloch (Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper)
The Best Halloween Poems–Episode 28: Edgar Allan Poe’s “Spirits of the Dead”
“Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness—for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again
In death around thee—and their will
Shall overshadow thee: be still.”–Edgar Allan Poe (Spirits of the Dead)
Halloween Horror: Robert Bloch’s “The Cloak”
“The cold, heavy cloth hung draped about Henderson’s shoulders. The faint odor rose mustily in his nostrils as he stepped back and surveyed himself in the mirror. The lamp was poor, but Henderson saw that the cloak effected a striking transformation in his appearance. His long face seemed thinner, his eyes were accentuated in the facial pallor heightened by the somber cloak he wore.–Robert Bloch (The Cloak)
The Best Halloween Poems–Episode 27: Robert Ervin Howard’s “Dead Man’s Hate”
His lips were writhed in a horrid grin like a fiend’s on Satan’s coals,
And the men that looked on his face that day, his stare still haunts their souls.
Such was the fate of Adam Brand, a strange, unearthly fate;
For stronger than death or hempen noose are the fires of a dead man’s hate.–Robert E. Howard (Dead Man’s Hate)
The Best Halloween Poems–Episode 26: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Haunted Houses”
All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.
We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Haunted Houses)
The Best Halloween Poems–Episode 25: Robert Burns’ “Halloween”
“Among the brackens, on the brae,
Between her and the moon,
The deil, or else an outler quey,
Gat up and gae a croon:
Poor Leezie’s heart maist lap the hool!
Near lav’rock-height she jumpit;
but mist a fit, and in the pool
Out-owre the lugs she plumpit,
Wi’ a plunge that night.”–Robert Burns (Halloween)
The Best Halloween Poems–Episode 24: John Keats’s “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
“I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cried—”La belle Dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!”–John Keats (La Belle Dame Sans Merci)
The Best Halloween Poems: Jeffrey LeBlanc’s “Blood & Dust” NOW SHOWCASED on HWA’s HALLOWEEN HAUNTS 2021!!!!!
“A vampire’s thirst is a deadly thing!”–Jeffrey Leblanc (Blood & Dust)
Halloween Horror: Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”
True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily — how calmly I can tell you the whole story.–Edgar Allan Poe (The Tell-Tale Heart)
The Best Halloween Poems–Episode 22: William Butler Yeats’s “The Stolen Child”
“Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”–William Butler Yeats (The Stolen Child)
The Best Halloween Poems–Episode 21: “Unda ‘Bride of the Sea'”
Murmuring waters about me are closing,
Soft the sweet vision advances to me:
Done are my trials; my heart is reposing
Safe with my Unda, the Bride of the Sea.–H. P. Lovecraft (Unda–Bride of the Sea)
Halloween Horror: Robert Bloch’s “The Hungry House”
He must be standing behind her now. He must have come in quietly, without saying anything. Perhaps he was going to put his arms around her, surprise her, startle her. Hence the shadow on the mirror. She turned ready to greet him. The room was empty.–Robert Bloch (The Hungry House)
Jeffrey LeBlanc 