Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NOCTURNAL CRIME AT THE CHATEAU, by PAUL FORT First Line: Is the chateau to spooks a prey, the black chateau of la ferte? Last Line: There to see) -- the black chateau of la ferte! Subject(s): Crime & Criminals; Ghosts; Night; Supernatural; Bedtime | ||||||||
Is the chateau to spooks a prey, the black chateau of La Ferte? . . . Is this a fire? Is this the moon? In quick succession through the gloom four windows blaze with fervid light. Are these the shaken torches bright of ghosts, that pace with noiseless feet, tonight, where the plateau is sweet with fragrant herbs the breezes sway. -- Ghosts, I'm alone. What message, pray? To the owlet's hooting cry remote, the Gothic window now doth flare; to the toad's harsh croaking, on its note, appears the chapel -- who goes there! . . . to the ominous raven's cawing drear, three massive tombstones upward rear, and where the window's dyes are shed, a maddened dance begin to tread. Is the chateau to spooks a prey, the black chateau of La-Ferte? -- Ghosts, I'm alone. What message, pray? To the whistling of a train that nears, coming from Villers-Cotteret, rending his slab of granite grey, lo, Alexandre Dumas appears, to another train's ill- omened call, from where you like, to me all's one, bursting another burial stone, starts forth the shade of Paul Feval; to a harsh siren's deafening shrieks, that shake the air despotically -- the siren of a steamer -- one distinguishes, come, can you not imagine? in his Highland breeks, the phantom of Sir Walter Scott, which, as if inadvertently, slips from the third uplifted stone. -- Ghosts, I'm alone. What message, pray? From Notre-Dame dread midnight tolls. Three poignards gleam above three souls. From the ruins, 'tis no mortal cry! -- Ghosts, I'm alone. What message, pray? -- "We assassinate Racine!" reply the tones of Scott, befogged and dim from ancient bumperfulls of gin, reply the droning accents fine of Dumas savouring a wine, replies the low, sepulchral call of hydrophobic Paul Feval, and, thunderstruck, I flee away, leaving the flares to sink and swoon, tombs to disintegrate in sooth, allowing peaceably the moon to mount the manor's slated roof. But that it was to spooks a prey, ill habited by phantoms three -- (some other night go there to see) -- the black chateau of La Ferte! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BREATH OF NIGHT by RANDALL JARRELL HOODED NIGHT by ROBINSON JEFFERS NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP by ROBINSON JEFFERS WORKING OUTSIDE AT NIGHT by DENIS JOHNSON POEM TO TAKE BACK THE NIGHT by JUNE JORDAN COOL DARK ODE by DONALD JUSTICE POEM TO BE READ AT 3 A.M by DONALD JUSTICE ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT by BOB KAUFMAN A PORTFOLIO OF SKETCHES: THE LITTLE ANNUITANT by PAUL FORT |
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