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The Haunted Hour; an anthology

by Margaret WIDDEMER (1884 - 1978)

Legends and Ballads of the Dead Part 2

I have not considered as ghost-poems anything but poems which related to the return of spirits to earth. They "The Blessed Damozel," a poem of spirits in heaven, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," whose heroine may be a fairy or witch, and whose ghosts are presented in dream only, do not belong in this classification; nor do such poems as Mathilde Blind's lovely sonnet, "The Dead Are Ever with Us," class as ghost-poems; for in these the dead are living in ourselves in a half-metaphorical sense. If a poem would be a ghost-story, in short, I have considered it a ghost-poem, not otherwise. (Excerpt by Margaret Widdemer)

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Listen next episodes of The Haunted Hour; an anthology:
Legends and Ballads of the Dead Part 3 , Legends and Ballads of the Dead Part 4