One Halloween Night

By Solveig Paulson Russell

Oh, once there was a fiddler came

One late October night,

And the music from his fiddle

Was fancy-free and light.

But still about the twanging

Was a mysterious air,

As if he played of pensive thoughts

He wanted us to share.

He set his feet on Brunsy Lane

Where black oaks mark the way.

It’s there the shadows drown themselves

And eat the light away.

Then as he went his music grew,

A haunting melody.

He nodded as he moved along

At things we could not see.

We didn’t dare to follow,

For the moon was ashy dim,

And blackness like a solid wall

Reached out and swallowed him.

Then as we turned and fled toward home,

Rushing things brushed past our hair.

And breathlessness and silence hung

Upon the mystic air.

There never was another night

That fiddler came our way,

But still, sometimes in fancy,

I can hear his music play.

Illustrated by Charles Shaw