Hallowe'En by Virna Sheard — Read

There is an old Italian legend which says that on the eve of / the beloved festival of All Saints (Hallowe'en) the souls of the / dead return to earth for a little while and go by on the wind. / The feast of All Saints is followed by the feast of the dead, when / for a day only the sound of the _Miserere_ is heard throughout the / cities of Italy.

Hark! Hark to the wind! 'Tis the night, they say, / When all souls come back from the far away -- / The dead, forgotten this many a day!

And the dead remembered -- ay! long and well -- / And the little children whose spirits dwell / In God's green garden of asphodel.

Have you reached the country of all content, / 0 souls we know, since the day you went / From this time-worn world, where your years were spent?

Would you come back to the sun and the rain, / The sweetness, the strife, the thing we call pain, / And then unravel life's tangle again?

I lean to the dark -- Hush! -- was it a sigh? / Or the painted vine-leaves that rustled by? / Or only a night-bird's echoing cry?