![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/The-Jack-O-Lantern.jpg\")
<\/h2>\n<\/h2>\nBy Madison Julius Cawein<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Last night it was Hallowe’en.
\nDarkest night I’ve ever seen.
\nAnd the boy next door, I thought,
\nWould be glad to know of this
\nJack-o’-lantern father brought
\nHome from Indianapolis.
\nAnd he was glad. Borrowed it.
\nPut a candle in and lit;
\nHid among the weeds out there
\nIn the side lot near the street.
\nI could see it, eyes aglare,
\nMouth and nose red slits of heat.
\nMy! but it looked scary! He
\nPerched an old hat on it, see?
\nLike some hat a scarecrow has,
\nBattered, tattered all around;
\nAnd he fanned long arms of grass
\nUp and down above the ground.
\nFirst an Irish woman, shawled,
\nWith a basket, saw it; bawled
\nFor her Saints and wept and cried,
\n“Is it you, Pat? Och! I knew
\nHe would git you whin you died!
\n‘Faith! there’s little change in you!”
\nThen the candle sputtered, flared,
\nAnd went out; and on she fared,
\nMuttering to herself. When lit,
\nNo one came for longest while.
\nThen a man passed; looked at it;
\nOn his face a knowing smile.
\nThen it scared a colored girl
\nInto fits. She gave a whirl
\nAnd a scream and ran and ran
\nThought Old Nick had hold her skin;
\nAnd she ran into a man,
\nP’liceman, and he run her in.
\nBut what pleased me most was that
\nIt made one boy lose his hat;
\nA big fool who thinks he’s smart,
\nBrags about the boys he beat:
\nKnew he’d run right from the start:
\nBiggest coward on the street.
\nThen a crowd of girls and boys
\nGathered with a lot of noise.
\nWhen they saw the lantern, well!
\nThey just took a hand: they thought
\nThat they had him when he fell;
\nBut he turned on them and fought.
\nHe just took that lantern’s stick,
\nLaid about him hard and quick,
\nAnd they yelled and ran away.
\nThen he brought me all he had
\nOf my lantern. And, I say,
\nCould have cried I was so mad.<\/p>\n
###<\/p>\n
The speaker describes the events of Halloween night after the speaker’s father brought home a jack-o-lantern. The boy next door borrowed the jack-o-lantern, lit a candle inside, and hid it in the weeds to scare people. It scared several passersby, including an old woman who thought it was someone she knew, a girl who had a fit, and a policeman who took the girl in. The jack-o-lantern also scared a boastful boy into losing his hat and running away. Finally, a crowd of kids attacked the jack-o-lantern, but the boy who borrowed it fought them off. He then returned what was left of the smashed pumpkin to the speaker, who was very upset about the destruction of the jack-o-lantern. The poem depicts the jack-o-lantern scaring people and leading to mischief on Halloween night.<\/p>\n
Madison Julius Cawein was an American poet born in 1865 in Louisville, Kentucky. He was associated with the \u201cKentucky School\u201d of writers and was known for his poetry featuring mystical themes of nature and mythology. Some of his notable published works include Blooms of the Berry (1898), Kentucky Poems (1900), Mystery and Romance (1901), and Myth and Romance (1908).<\/p>\n
Cawein\u2019s style was heavily influenced by the English Romantic poets like Keats and Shelley, with much of his poetry conveying a dreamy, romantic, and imaginative tone. He led a largely reclusive life, suffering from depression and alcoholism in his later years. Cawein died by suicide in 1914 at the age of 49.<\/p>\n
At the peak of his career, Cawein was compared to renowned Romantic poets like Keats and Shelley. While mostly forgotten today, he was considered an influential regional American poet at the turn of the 20th century. His poem \u201cThe Vampire\u201d is one example of his works dealing with supernatural subjects and themes. Though he died in obscurity, Cawein contributed a substantial body of mystical, nature-inspired poetry during his lifetime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Jack-O’-Lantern By Madison Julius Cawein Last night it was Hallowe’en. Darkest night I’ve ever seen. And the boy next door, I thought, Would be glad to know of this Jack-o’-lantern father brought Home from Indianapolis. And he was glad. Borrowed it. Put a candle in and lit; Hid among the weeds out there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[418,469],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-halloween-poems","category-horror-poem"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}