"this ghost is too carnal"

[eldritchhobbit]

Last night, some of us in the Lómelindi Smial of the Tolkien Society celebrated the holiday by taking a Nashville Ghost Tour. It was fantastic!




This picture, taken by the wonderful semielliptical (to whom I owe great thanks for joining us -- it was wonderful to meet her!), includes many LJ folks, including armyetore in the back row, aragornlover, gondoriangirl, witchcat07, lizzieausten, and griffith_gwyn in the middle row, and sailingwest and me in the front row. Yay for the intrepid smial!



Today's text is an excerpt from the poem "Haunted House" (1883) by George MacDonald:

This must be the very night!
The moon knows it!--and the trees--
They stand straight upright,
Each a sentinel drawn up,
As if they dared not know
Which way the wind might blow!
The very pool, with dead gray eye,
Dully expectant, feels it nigh,
And begins to curdle and freeze!
And the dark night,
With its fringe of light,
Holds the secret in its cup!

II. What can it be, to make
The poplars cease to shiver and shake,
And up in the dismal air
Stand straight and stiff as the human hair
When the human soul is dizzy with dread--
All but those two that strain
Aside in a frenzy of speechless pain,
Though never a wind sends out a breath
To tunnel the foggy rheum of death?
What can it be has power to scare
The full-grown moon to the idiot stare
Of a blasted eye in the midnight air?
Something has gone wrong;
A scream will come tearing out ere long!

Read the entire poem.