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Poetry of Cristel Hastings

The Haunted House

by Cristel Hastings

published in WEIRD TALES, May 1929

It stands deserted through the mildewed years;

Its only friends the wind and evening star

And the gray mist that rains its dripping tears

And wonders who its ghostly tenants are.

They say it's best to take the upper trail

Where sunshine floods the flowered, perfumed way,

Avoiding an old road where thistles sail

And blank-eyed windows stare back, gaunt and gray.

They say the walls have bullet-tunneled holes,

And that the rats run screeching through the night;

They say queer shapes slip out and walk the knolls,

Seeking the souls that long ago took flight.

Queer lights glow where the zero hour sounds,

And winds moan through the empty, aching halls;

And as they bed the trees, a shadow bounds

From room to room, and sends its shrieking calls.

Forgotten with each dawn the morning croon,

The screeching rats, the shadow shapes that strode;

But if I MUST go by, even at noon,

It's just as well to take the upper road.