Here is a creepy little sonnet from John Masefield; I have shared this before but long dark evenings are the right time for the Gothic and the grim! At my book club on Wednesday we read ghostly and ghoulish stories by M. E. Braddon, Edgar Allan Poe and M.R.James… actually we didn’t find them that frightening or spooky, but we had an enjoyable evening! next Monday the writing group are reading gothic tales they have penned… I’d better get writing one!
Mansfield is a master at setting scenes and developing atmosphere within just a few line, summoning images like phantoms from his words – the house is silent, apart from the tick of a clock, or a death watch beetle, or death itself, and outside owls in a yew, mice behind the wainscot, dead men knocking, and spooky cats watching from the rooftops. Beauty, his personification, is waiting outside in the loveliness of the moonlit night, but somehow here she is not a lovely thing, but a rather sinister one!
Night came again, but now I could not sleep.
The owls were watching in the yew, the mice
Gnawed at the wainscot; the mid dark was deep,
The death-watch knocked the dead man’s summons thrice.
The cats upon the pointed housetops peered
About the chimneys, with lit eyes which saw
Things in the darkness, moving, which they feared.
The midnight filled the quiet house with awe.
So, creeping down the stair, I drew the bolt
And passed into the darkness, and I knew
That Beauty was brought near by my revolt.
Beauty was in the moonlight, in the dew,
But more within myself whose venturous tread
Walked the dark house where death ticks called the dead.
Lois Elsden 