Beware!

Candle, spoon and carving knife:
nearing the vigil of the dead,
let’s impose a little life
upon a ripening, faceless head.

Slice and pry the handled top,
shovel out the mush and seeds,
cut — before we hear the clop,
coming too close, of chalky steeds.

Two triangles make the eyes,
another makes a classic nose;
three teeth, square and oversize,
complete a countenance that glows

all night by its captive wick,
its parody of intellect.
Idle amusement for the quick.
And yet the venturous dead are checked:

shades of traitors that are given
one night’s leave of Satan’s jaws;
throngs of warlocks; wild unshriven
things with lammergeyer claws;

bogies by the wild heavens abhorred
witness their own defective will
when they flee this grinning gourd
presiding on our window sill.

Of whom or what an effigy,
that is for itself to know
until All Hallows’ turns us free
to lift the cranial lid and blow.


Jack O' Lantern, by Robert B. Shaw