![\"Courting](\"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/ghost-125x150.gif\")
W. S. Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) wrote a large number of poems, ballads, and “funny articles” for the magazine Fun<\/i> under the pen-name “Bab.” These came to be known as “Bab Ballads,” and in addition to being famous in their own right some were the source for plots and songs for the G&S operas.<\/p>\n
This one, The Ghost to His Ladye Love<\/i>, would be a fine addition to a wedding invitation.<\/p>\n Fair Phantom, come! The moon’s awake, Though there are others, spectre mine, Still, there’s a modest charm in thee, United, we’ll defy alarms: Come, essence of a slumb’ring soul, And here’s another, The Ghosts’ High Noon<\/i>, which would be great as part of a party invitation.<\/p>\n When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls, As the sob of the breeze sweeps over the trees, And then each ghost with his ladye-toast
\nThe owl hoots gaily from its brake,
\n The blithesome bat’s a-wing.
\nCome, soar to yonder silent clouds;
\nThe ether teems with peopled shrouds:
\nWe’ll fly the lightsome spectre crowds,
\n Thou cloudy, clammy thing!<\/p>\n
\nWith eyes as hollow, quite, as thine,
\n That thrill me from above \u2014
\nWhose lips are quite as deathly pale,
\nWhose voices rival thine in wail
\nWhen, riding on the joyous gale,
\n They breathe sepulchral love.<\/p>\n
\nThat causes thee to seem to be
\n More pure than others are \u2014
\nThough rich in calico and bone,
\nThou art not beautiful alone \u2014
\nFor thou art also good, my own!
\n And that is better, far.<\/p>\n
\nA death-time in each other’s arms
\nWe’ll pass \u2014 and fear no dearth
\n Of jollity: when Morpheus flits
\nO’er mortal eyes, we’ll whet our wits,
\nAnd frighten people into fits
\n Who did us harm on earth!<\/p>\n
\nThrow off thy maidenly control
\n Un-shroud thy ghastly face!
\nGive me thy foggy lips divine,
\nAnd let me press my mist to thine,
\nAnd fold thy nothingness in mine,
\n In one long damp embrace.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nand the bat in the moonlight flies,
\nAnd inky clouds, like funeral shrouds,
\nsail over the midnight skies –
\nWhen the footpads quail at the night-bird’s wail,
\nand black dogs bay the moon,
\nThen is the spectres’ holiday –
\nthen is the ghosts’ high noon!<\/p>\n
\nand the mists lie low on the fen,
\nFrom grey tombstones are gathered the bones
\nthat once were women and men,
\nAnd away they go, with a mop and a mow,
\nto the revel that ends too soon,
\nFor cockcrow limits our holiday –
\nthe dead of the night’s high noon!<\/p>\n
\nto their churchyard beds take flight,
\nWith a kiss, perhaps, on her lantern chaps,
\nand a grisly grim “good night”;
\nTill the welcome knell of the midnight bell
\nrings forth its jolliest tune,
\nAnd ushers our next high holiday –
\nthe dead of the night’s high noon!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n