I dedicate this page to the Ancestors; ancestors of the land, of blood, and of spirit.
(poem by: Elspeth Sapphire)
It is the time of burning leaves,
I sit comfortly in this silent room
I 'see' a bonfire raging on a hilltop
The drums beat, the people dance
The Other Side is so very close--
I reach, I feel, I almost touch...
I turn away from the cold ashes
Another year til another Samhain...
The crispness of the air has awakened
Memories both dark and hidden,
Memories of past feasts partaken.
Computer keyboard beneath my fingers
Yet...my mind is never frozen here
In times past it wants to linger.
With my people all gathered around
Our prayers to the Gods I shout,
Yet, in my dreams I hear not a sound.
Wildness fills the autumn night.
The Veil just beyond the fire light.
Spirit fingers entwine with mortal
Then dawn's first light appears
And seals again the fragile portal.
Let the wildness leave my aching soul.
On that night again I'll be whole.
(poem by: unknown) 
If the drums had continued beating
And warriors dwelled upon the land
We would dance to a different drummer
As the Great Creator had planned
Smoking campfires would dot the landscape
Music would fill the air
Families would eagerly embrace a lifetime
In freedom and in the willingness to share
The animals would wander freely
Amongst grass and trees and flowers
And all the beauty of the wilderness
Would to this day, still be ours
There would be no paths of concrete
Just dirt beneath our feet
The stars, the moon and sunlight
Would make this dream complete
Our pillow would contain moonlight
Our blanket would consist of stars
The dawn would bring sweet music
Imagine, all this once was ours
Pride was taken in the glory of nature
Courage from facing the elements
If we hadn't tried to change the past
We'd never wonder where the beauty went
If the drums had continued beating
And warriors still possessed the land
There would be a forever brotherhood
Where we would evermore walk, hand in hand
(poem by: unknown) 
The Veil Is Getting Thin
As I went out walking this fall afternoon,
I heard a wisper wispering.
I heard a wisper wispering,
Upon this fine fall day...
As I went out walking this fall afternoon,
I heard a laugh a'laughing.
I heard a laugh a'laughing,
Upon this fine fall day...
I heard this wisper and I wondered,
I heard this laugh and then I knew.
The time is getting near my friends,
The time that I hold dear my friends,
The veil is getting thin my friends,
And strange things will pass through.
(poem by:Annie Finch)
SAMHAIN
In the season leaves should love,
since it gives them leave to move
through the wind, towards the ground
they were watching while they hung,
legend says there is a seam
stitching darkness like a name.
Now when dying grasses veil
earth from the sky in one last pale
wave, as autumn dies to bring
winter back, and then the spring,
we who die ourselves can peel
back another kind of veil
that hangs among us like thick smoke.
Tonight at last I feel it shake.
I feel the nights stretching away
thousands long behind the days,
till they reach the darkness where
all of me is ancestor.
I turn my hand and feel a touch
move with me, and when I brush
my young mind across another,
I have met my mother's mother.
Sure as footsteps in my waiting
self, I find her, and she brings
arms having answers for me,
intimate, a waiting bounty.
"Carry me." She leaves this trail
through a shudder of the veil,
and leaves, like amber where she stays,
a gift for her perpetual gaze.
(poem by:Kenny Klien )
Samhain
Red leaves are carried in the salt west wind
And turn to brown on dry soil.
The sun is bright still, but not warm
On the last rich gold of scattered fall.
The great wheel turns, another year
Old, bright gold with death.
Bare branches now, the Old Lord's limbs,
Chill wind the Old Lord's breath.
Like dancing leaves on sleeping branches
The dark tide of memory is stirred.
The deepest thought-flame now is kindled,
Consuming, the fire in ancient words.
Samhain, the thin veil opens, fingers
Reaching through the blackness deep.
Through the grey cloud wisps, old voices
Shapes, shifting, slowly creep.
Mab's red-eyed dogs, howling, wander
Through the fields as soil grows hard
Searching for uncounted jewels
The Fairy Queen's forgotten shards
The last red morsels, undevoured
Returned to Her who granted birth
Mab's womb, given up its children,
Shrivels, cold with the hardened earth.
In meadows that the scythe has tasted
Now the Samhain fires are high
The circle dance is weaving, spinning
On graceful foot, on darkened thigh,
The spiral dance is downward twisted,
The Horned One's chant, the Welcome Home--
"Home" is on the north wind whispered,
The Swordless Death Lord takes his throne.
And to Mab, the Horned One's sister,
Whose loins have yielded up their spark,
"Follow" now the north wind whispers,
Mab, Death Queen, the Timeless Dark.
And in the barren, fruitless meadow,
Dancing 'round the Samhain fire,
Her face a flower, her eyes a-tremble,
A young maid spins the ancient spire.
Chanting home the swordless Horned One,
Like a doe, she leaps the flame.
In cold Autumn's death, a new beginning,
In Mab's cold womb, life starts again.
Blessed Be.
(poem by: R. A. Melos )
A Witch's Words To Her Familiar On Samhain
Still your mind,
and still your soul,
heed the words that make you grow,
listen to the winds of the sages,
learn the wisdom of the mages,
handed down to us from the ages.
Time is ours,
but only fleeting,
hear the wings of eternity beating,
soon enough we'll all be meeting,
and each of us merrily greeting.
The moon will be full,
and round,
and bright.
And we'll be wisked away,
in the dead of night.
To the place we are meant to be,
to learn and grow,
and maybe see,
a spectre of what we should be.
Time is ours,
frozen, but brief,
allowing us to release our grief,
to open our hearts and minds once more,
and step through the sacred door,
of time and space, and futures past,
to teach us the spells to cast.
So we may once again be free,
to live and love and blessed be.
So still your mind,
and still your soul,
and open your heart,
and set yourself free,
on this Samhain, I challenge thee.
Learn the truth from mages old,
the truth which was foretold.
The time is right, the night is new,
we can learn what not to do.
Warnings from the great beyond,
we'll heed them or all cry,
for lies can no longer be told,
when you look me in the eye.
I've learned a lesson, bold and true,
and now there are but a few,
who understand the depth of change,
and how we all must rearrange,
our thinking and goals,
for times anew,
if the world is to survive,
for me and you.
We've got our work cut out for us,
my friend.
And we must not fail,
before the end,
or all will be lost,
and fate will be no more,
and finally the great beyond,
will close the door.
Time and space will exist no more,
my friend,
my familiar,
we must work to prevent war.
Peace must prevail for ten thousand years,
and we must make sure it does.
Our souls eternal bond will hold,
as our bodies grow old.
Fear not the great beyond,
my friend,
for it is a beginning,
not an end.
Our work will continue for eternity,
until everlasting peace shall set us free.
(poem by: Yvonne Aburrow )
Samhain
As night draws its veil over the land,
And autumn draws on her cloak of leaves,
The other world draws nearer to our own,
And the dead gather in the place of shadows.
The dark mother stands revealed
In her terrible naked glory.
The heartstopping beauty of Autumn
Is like a spear roaring for blood.
Even as the Sun recedes from us
To journey over the dark dreaming river
Into the country of death -
So we seek within ourselves the seed of life.
The seed of life: Demeter's mystery,
Kernel within the dark husk,
The Child of Light turning within the womb,
Reflected in the burnished gold of autumn leaves.
(poem by: Lord Fluff )
Sam Hain
Who is this guy they call Sam Hain?
I see his name in witchy books;
But when I ask my witchy friends;
They just give me the strangest looks.
He seems to be so important;
And everyone knows him but me;
Each year they throw him a party;
It sounds like THE cool place to be!
When I ask my friends what he’s like;
They all practically turn and run;
I need to get to know Sam Hain;
So I can join in all the fun!
I asked friends to introduce me;
I’ll have to introduce myself;
‘Cuz when I asked they looked at me;
As if I’m a demented elf!
So I searched the yellow pages;
I called up information too;
I just can’t find this guy Sam Hain;
I surfed the web ‘til I turned blue!
I’ve heard my witchy friends planning;
And although they’ll think I’m a pain;
I’m going to crash his party;
Then I’ll finally meet Sam Hain!
(poem by: unknown )
Dear Ancestor
Your tombstone stands among the rest;
neglected and alone
The name and date are chiseled out
on polished, marbled stone
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn
You did not know that I’d exist
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you
in flesh, in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
entirely not our own.
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
one hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot,
and come to visit you.
(poem by: From my BoS from an old
friends' from his first teachers' and who knows
where from before then. This poem was read every
year after The Coven of Branches Samhain
Ritual.)
For all those who died-stripped
naked, shaved & shorn
For all those who screamed in
vain to the Great goddess,
only to have their tongues
ripped out by the root.
For those who were pricked, racked,
broken on the wheel for the
sins of their inquisitors.
For those whose beauty stirred
their torturers to fury; and for
those whose ugliness did the same.
For all those who were neither
ugly nor beautiful, but only
women who refused to submit.
For all those quick fingers,
broken in the vice.
For all those soft arms, pulled
from their sockets.
For all those budding breasts,
ripped with hot pinchers.
For all those midwives, killed
merely for the sin of bringing
man to an imperfect world.
For all those witch-women,
my sisters, who breathed freer
as the flames took them,
knowing as thay shed their
female bodies, the seared flesh
falling like fruit in the flames,
that death alone would cleanse
them of the sin of being born
a women who is more then
the sum of her parts.
(poem by: Chanticleer )
THE DRUMS OF SAMHAIN
The drums of Samhain keeping time.
The gates of magic open wide.
A cauldron's blessings overflow.
The candle flames are dying low.
The witches dance the circle 'round
to chant and bring the power down.
Hecate will hear our call
to turn the summer into fall.
The magic veil is growing thin.
The Netherworld is near our own.
We'll see the sacred fire fed
while witches commune with the dead.
The winds of Autumn call our names.
The driving rhythm slowly calms.
The glowing embers we will tend
until the drums of Samhain end.
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Disclaimer Credit has been given where known. I make no claim as to being the author of the poems appearing on this site.
