Ghost Story in Verse

I wanted to upload this on Halloween, but I was quite tied up, so it's a little late, and I do beg your pardon.

In the murky midnight of November,
under pendulous clouds that, glowering low,
overshadowed the fair moon,
we wait in the gloaming under the trees,
and plot there to find a way in.
Under torches so softly there lit,
our feet steal up to the door,
but no tracks do they leave as they touch the dust,
and the lights that go out when we pass.
The fibers in the wood barely bend in the wake,
as the host slowly filters through
flowing through air thicker than water,
and letting the candles fall dim.
Where rages the demon, where dances the witch?
Where do pagans light fires to the goat-
in their spells and their sigils have we lived far on,
inscribed in the blood of the gift.
In legends of grues and hauntings and ghouls,
none mock who have walked in the dark.
Fools will shake, and scoffers will mourn
at the sight of the form by their bed.
With the sound of the chime a skeletal hand
marks shadowy tracks on the floor
and against the window a tapping begins
rousing a soul up from rest.
Sensing the eyes of the pale figures there
all gathered round the dark room,
seeking to ride on the breath and to drink
the blood so warm in the veins;
the fear in the eyes, hands clawing the sheets
and the thrills that we feel at the sight!
Rise up, rise up, fellow-spirits, here
frozen, he waits for the claws
to shear into madness his pitiful mind
and drag him away into night!
Softly yet, softly yet, gathering round,
no moaning, no laughing, no shrieks,
a touch on the hand, a well-beloved face
set before the eyes to deceive.
"Kate! Little Kate! How long has it been
since I last beheld you alive?"
And with that cry, and hands held out wide,
he stumbles into the circle of dread.
Pretty grandchild Katherine, a little bird flown
straight into death from six years of life.
Bright little eyes, and soft little hands
now returned to collect from her own.
A single wild onrush, a snatching away
and Katie's young face flies upward again
her hand firmly gripped within his.
Lead him now, lead him now, granddaughter fair
with us he would never walk, even one stride,
in your hands easily lead him away.
Further now, further now, into the dark
touch not the crucifix, name not the saint,
walk with him, walk with him, on into black.
Flying behind, sailing around,
silent wrappings and grave clothes and chains,
sweeping along in regalia stained
in what is, or once was, will be.
The deadly procession walks ever on
damned, unholy, unshriven, unmourned,
over the threshold and over the lawn,
he comes along blindly, but too well we see.
At the gate, at the gate, there is the line-
parade of white stones there, placed
to guard and to ward from evil and blight
if he will not cross them, he's free.
Three steps before, yet a million behind-
a faint breath of fog sways up from the ground
and puffs over the mouth of the prey.
Further still, further still, less a yard more
hands without substance press at his back
fingers of ether pluck at his robe,
and tongueless whisperers urge on his feet.
Crossed them, he's over now, the victory won!
No phantom now needed to lure him along.
Catch him and pull him, armed with new strength
relishing screams that tear from his lungs.
Whipped into terror, sprinting along,
a watcher would think his mind had gone mad
but more evil still the murderous truth-
he runs with the dead to his grave!
Faster now, faster now, a race in a nightmare,
some ride on horses of nothing but bone
others sing madrigals and eldritch paeans;
the sleepers passed by cry out in the night
as the dances of devils beat on their hearts
and cold breath sweeps over their beds.
The black hole of woodland swallows us whole,
and shot through with moonlight under tall trees,
advance like a zephyr of dark winter chill...
Winding a pathway through thorns among shadow,
a trackless procession o'er the loam.
A ghostly white ribbon threaded through thickets
but coming yet closer to the end of the way;
a devilish journey pricked through with screams
and eyes that glimmer from between the leaves.
A break in the foliage reveals the gloom,
star-ticked, of a graveyard there set
in a clearing unreached by light of the moon
and studded with headstones for teeth in its maw.
Eyes madly rolling, his jaws distend wide
a plaintive long moan shudders him through
the whispering grasses add to the music
of a mass for the hopeless soul brought here tonight.
Circling slowly, the hands of the damned
entwine together about and begin
to sway along, wafting, in a ring of pale mist
dancing him, dancing him down to his death!
Wilder and wilder now, spinning him 'round
into exhaustion and dragging him down
in a whirling maelstrom of terror and pain
until, heaving up skyward,
the rabble of ghosts reveals to the air
the cold lips, the pale hands of one lifeless and limp
now hopeless fodder for the ravenous earth.
Lifting up, surging up, forward they come
to lay him down gently for a far deeper rest
in a grave that lies yawning up at the moon!
Cast down forever, into cold earth,
a bed sparsely furnished, with nought but the worms
to cover him and give him their warmth
and nought but the soil to pillow his head
with sickly grass for a canopy over.
But the company- in that he's supplied
quite richly. Silent neighbors beside him,
next to him, all roundabout laid
and over it all walk the secretive stars
gossiping, whispering somewhere in space
while far down on earth, spirited away,
his withering face finds speech to be gone,
and struggling upward, with limbs weighted down
by mud and earth-clods cast from above
by the mad jeering specters gathered around.
Breath soon has left him, and under night's dome,
a fresh mound has risen like a cankerous sore
pulsed with infection, waiting to burst,
and spew forth the rot that writhed in the hole.
It is but to wait then, and wait they shall do,
for to add to the ranks of fleshless impure
is worth the time needed for the dead to repose.
After a time, two times, and then half,
the earth is disturbed again by shadowy hands
and one is seen groping for purchase to rise
out of the rank tomb into which he was thrown
as a newly-dead mortal in the night winds and mists,
up to existence with cadaverous want
and a ravenous thirst.
Now standing upright, a skeletal corpse,
raggedly clad and blotched with decay
it greets fellow monsters with a petrified grin
his lips peeled back in a frozen death-mask
and joins them in seeking for new souls to capture
and bring to their end, in a manner like his.
So when the moon rises skull-like,
and demons ride the air,
on phantasmal currents that moan and cry out,
fear for your soul, and dare not to sleep-
clutch the cross tight to your heart,
trust not the living, bide not the dead,
you may yet remain while others are led
to a fate far more ghastly than ever was known
by those who sleep peacefully, shriven by priests
and have their homes in the churchyard.
Remain undeceived by a late lover's voice,
it can only hide a fleshless throat,
and the eyeless face of a ghoul.
Let not your dreams fall prey to the night,
and you will see the sunrise once more.