..To end alone, for ever in the
dark. And behind the countenance of even a smiling ghost is the cold leer of the
cadaver
Just as I am..the ghost
tells the living ..so shall you
be."
Here are some old ghost
tales...
The lantern bearer lights the way
For those who no more seize
the day
Blind eyes peer out from
every head
That crowds the carriage
of the dead.
Nor crown nor coin
can halt time's flight
Or stay the
armies of the night
King and villein, lad and lass,
All answer to the
hourglass.
Her hour had come, his mother smiled
And sighed beside her
infant child
But he, too, answered to the curse
And found himself an older
nurse.
A gentle hand will help
the dead
To find the way to their
last bed
Who engineers the mortal's
end
Will tell you he's man's best
friend.
~Author unknown.
Here is a small account, what makes this one chilling is that it is small, and
thus believable to all....
"A man startled from his sleep, found
himself laying in a pitch dark, silent
room, longing for the comfort of a
lighted candle.
He searched for a
match, and a match was put into his
hand.
"Late one spring night in the last
century a certain Englishman found
himself, to his astonishment, standing
in the garden outside his house. he
remembered falling asleep in his bed,
but he had no memory of waking and
walking out the door. He turned to go
back inside but the door was locked.
The moon had set, and the familiar
garden had become a foreign landscape
painted in shades of black and gray. His prized privet hedge was an anonymous,
humpbacked blur, larger than it looked
by daylight, the still-bare branches of
the trees were skeletal arms streched
wide against the stars. But from the
window of his wife's bedroom, light
shone warm and welcoming into the night. He made for the window at once. His wife could be trusted to admit him to the
house with out the usual jokes reserved
for wandering sleepwalkers.
He observed, with some disapproval that
she had fallen asleep with the candles
still burning. What disturbed him most
was the unnatural effect of the candle
flames.
Her face sunk amoung the mounds of
pillows, looked old and sallow not
wshing to frighten his wife by knocking
he stepped close to the panes and
stared. Concentrating all his will on
her to make her wake and see him there.
Obedient even in sleep, she stirred and
sat up. Her eyes focused on the window,
looking directly into his own, and he
gave a benign and reassuring smile.
The result was not what he had hoped.
For a moment his wife did nothing. Then her head began to bob and her shoulders
to tremble. Her eyes widened and bulged, her mouth opened, the lips drawn tight.
She screamed, as those in nightmares
scream, with out a sound.
Unnerved,
he took a step backward. His wife found
her voice, and her shriek rent the air
and battered the windowpane. It went
crazily on and on, punctuated by hoarse
and gasping breaths. He raised his arm
and knocked upon the window to put an
end to the appalling noise.
he saw a curious sight then. He saw it quite
clearly and all at once: the gleaming
white bones of his forearm, neatly
articulated to the bones of his wrist,
the pebbly joints of his five fingers
loosely bound by frayed strings of
ligament, and the fluttering shreds of
his own winding sheet.
Then darkness and nothingness swallowed him once
again......."
I wage not any feud with Death
For changes wrought on form and face;
No lower life that earth's embrace
May breed with him, can fright my faith.
Eternal process moving on,
From state to state the spirit walks;
And these are but the shatter'd stalks,
Or ruin'd chrysalis of one.
Nor blame I Death, because he bare
The use of virtue out of earth:
I know transplanted human worth
Will bloom to profit, otherwhere.
For this alone on Death I wreak
The wrath that garners in my heart;
He put our lives so far apart
We cannot hear each other speak.
~Tennyson
