'Twas the Night Before Hallowmass

Twas the night before Hallowmass, and all through the keep,

Strange creatures were stirring, to trouble your sleep!

The corpses were hung by the hearthstone with care,

While witches wreaked havoc to give you a scare!

The cadavers in coffins were nestled so tight,

To see them turn over would give you a fright;

And Mama in her kerchief, wrapped tight round her throat

--had just drank the blood of a sacrificed goat!

When rattle-tat-clatter came the ghosts all a-knocking,

To see if the dead could be coaxed into talking!

Away to the graveyard I went with a squeal,

On the hot wind of Hell, toward my worm-ridden meal!

And there I espied in the murk and the grey,

The corpses of infants beneath the cold clay!

Like graveworms they feasted on Hallowmass treats,

While the rain poured down heavy in icy cold sheets!

Now what to my bleary old orbs should appear,

But the Reaper Himself, the Crown Prince of our FEAR!

In a cloak of black midnight, he walked 'mongst the graves

To torment with terror the naughtiest knaves.

His chariot black was a Tartarus hearse,

To hear it roll past you--the ultimate curse!

And this hearse of all hearses by skeletal nags,

Was driven through nightmares by breath-stealing hags!

"On Murder! On Mangler! On Poison and Pain!

"On Suicide, Slaughter! On Abnormal Brain!"

He whipped them and beat them with one bony hand,

All the better to goad them to meet his demand!

"On Putrid! On Catarrh! On Vomit and Scab!

"On Cancer and Whiplash! On Corpse on the Slab!"

And upward sailed he with the demonic throng,

Of gabbling goblins, all howling their song!

When flying on up past the thick gibbous moon,

He went with a leer as he laughed like a loon;

And onto the roof of a nearby old house,

Where inside was writhing not even a...louse.

And down past the rain gutter he crawled, inch by inch

Till into the window he went like a cinch;

And covered in gravedirt, and stinking of death,

Our Unheavenly Father was here to steal breath.

His eyes were the red glowing color of Hell,

And each sorry footfall, a funeral bell;

And sleeping in bed he espied his two prey--

One he would spare, the other to slay!

His head was as black as the pitch and the night,

And his eye sockets burned, like the fabled corpse-light;

And he hefted his hatchet, and then swung it back

All the better to hasten his killing attack!

When what through the neighborhood streets should resound,

But the clickety-clack of a rattling sound!--

Like the bones of your grandam disturbed in her tomb;

Like the unholy birth from an unhallowed womb!

And now to the window the Reaper did fly,

To peer up in wonder, as witches flew by;

And bats followed ravens up into the fog,

And the night wind was pierced by the howl of a dog.

A death train was choo-chooing into the air,

The conductor a monstrous thing covered in hair;

And lifting his arm beside one evil eye,

He waved to the world and started to cry!

His other hand held out the forked hook of hell,

And his lips they did murmur a funeral spell;

And he left clouds of stink as he exhaled each breath, saying,

"Happy Halloween all, and to all a GRIM DEATH!"