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[Illustration: Drawn & Engraved by J. N. Gimbrede

_Give me the calm of Days decline to muse upon my own_]




                               HALLOWEEN,

                               A ROMAUNT,

                                  WITH

                                 LAYS,

                       MEDITATIVE AND DEVOTIONAL.

                 *        *        *        *        *
                                   BY
                   THE AUTHOR OF “CHRISTIAN BALLADS.”
                 *        *        *        *        *

                               HARTFORD:
                             H. S. PARSONS.
                                 1845.




      Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by
                            H. S. PARSONS,
      In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Connecticut.



                             Stereotyped by
                           RICHARD H. HOBBS,
                            Hartford, Conn.

                               Printed by
                       CASE, TIFFANY AND BURNHAM,
                            Hartford, Conn.




                                PREFACE.


HALLOWEEN has been printed, though never published before. In the winter
of 1842 I had a private edition, of fifty copies, struck off for my
friends. These have been freely loaned and circulated, till the book has
been enquired for by strangers, at my bookseller’s; and at his instance,
I now allow it to appear. Though I had not intended this, and for many
private reasons rather disliked the idea of making it public; I suppose,
on the whole, that it will be better to publish it now, than in after
life, and to edit it myself, than to leave it to a survivor.

A curious incident suggested this little poem. It was written when I was
but twenty. The same theme would now inspire a very different strain;
and I can approve it only as a true exhibition of the manifold emotions
at work, in a mind disposed to be religious, at that period of life when
the world entices most, and character is yet fervid and unstamped. I am
willing to make it public, therefore, if the gentle few, who have
heretofore been my public, will vouchsafe to consider it only in
reference to its place, between the trifles I have written before and
after it. In its proper position I think its effect will be happy; for
it is a favorite habit of mine to regard all that an author publishes,
as his only complete work; in which, if he be a poet, the several parts
will bear but the proportion of a stanza or a canto. I think this is an
ennobling view to take of any writer; but a profitable one especially,
where authors have written much, and ventured often before the world,
while their opinions were in a state of progress and transition. By such
a rule, I hope my own friends will judge whatever I have already, or may
hereafter, put forth. I should be sorry if Politiano’s experience were
not always mine, with regard to all I have yet published:

        Dum relego scripsisse pudet; quia plurima cerno,
          Me quoque, qui feci, judice, digna lini.

                                                             A. C. C.

St. John’s Rectory, Hartford,

   May, 1844.




                               HALLOWEEN.


             TO A LADY.

                 I.

    If souls, once more, to these their haunts on earth,
      Can come, dear Lady, from the Spirit-land,
    I ask’d thee,—would it spoil thine hour of mirth,
      To see some sudden shape before thee stand!
      And a cold shudder told me, and thine hand
    Press’d dearer to mine own. But then said I,
      Oh! if thy friend were dead, and could command
    Some midnight hour to visit thee; reply,
    Say, would it grieve thee, Love, if love could never die!

                 II.

    I have been