Haunted House

Leonard Cline's posthumous poetry collection After-Walker (1930) was submitted to the publisher a few years earlier under the title Haunted House. (For more, see here.)  Here is what would have been the title poem of the proposed collection. 

Haunted House

 

Laugh you will and it's laugh you may,

And sure it's a moonstruck tale to tell;

But the farmhouse stands there even today

And the crooked tree and the crumbling well,

All as they were the night I woke,

Sprawled on the grass, when the old house spoke.

 

"Evening, brother," the old house said

With a spidery chuckle and half a wink.

"There don't seem anything in your head;

You're about as empty as me, I'd think."

And I with a chuckle and half a grin

Said, "Evening, brother, and how've you been?"

 

"Tol'able, tol'able, can't complain,"

The old house answered. "And now it's May.

Only people give me a pain

And I wish you'd tell them to keep away. 

Tell them that the agent lied

When he said I wasn't occupied." 

 

And "Yes," said I, "when I was coming

Up the road and I saw the moon

Slip in the back door. She was humming

A sort of keening, a sort of tune.

And down in the village they say, too, 

There's a ghost that walks in you." 

 

"That's my Celia, that's my dear,"

The old house sighed. 

"A bride she went away from here

But the song of her stayed here my bride;

And here till I moulder and rot there'll be 

Nobody else will live in me. 

 

"Nobody else forever and all," 

The old house whispered, and said no more.

But I heard a keening, a sort of call,

And the moon came out of the broken door,

Came where I lay by the crooked tree

And leaned a moment over me.

 

Laugh you will and it's laugh you may,

And sure it's a moonstruck tale I've told;

But there's the farmhouse empty and gray

And the crumbling well and the crooked old

Crab-apple tree, as when I departed

Silent that night, haunted-hearted. 

And "Do me a favor before you go," 

The old house chuckled. "That sign FOR RENT,

Will you print the word NOT on it? . . . So,

Many thanks, brother." And as I went

I heard the old house: "Good-night, brother.

Can't we see some more of each other?"