POEM 1

Qila: Hey guys. Welcome to the zoom meeting. So, we are given the task to find texts related to
ghosts or spirits from the Victorian and Romantic Era. So, do you guys have any ideas?

Fezal: Does it mean, its the VictRomantic Era? Haha. Just kidding.

Sweeta: No you silly! Victorian Era and Romantic Era has two different characteristics. Victorian Era
was the time of the world's first Industrial Revolution, political reform and social change.
Romanticism Era emphasises individual imagination and appreciation for the nature.

Bridge: 1

Nisha: How about we watch Annable or The Amityville Horror.

Alta: No, Nisha. That is from the 20th Century. VictRomantic... Sheesh. Fezal's word stuck to me. The
Victorian and Romantic era are from the 19th century which was in 1800s.

Ashraf: Oh so we can watch movies like "The Phantom of the Opera" then.

Sweeta: No! You guys don't get it! It must to be a ghost.

Qila: True. It must to be a ghost and it is not only movies. Let's look for stories, shall we?

Bridge 2:

Qila: How about we choose "Brown Lady of Raynman Hall" by an unknow author.

Alta: That's scary.

Sweeta: How about "The Open Door"? It is by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant, who was a a Scottish novelist
and historical writer. Her fictional works encompass "domestic realism, the historical novel and tales
of the supernatural"

Fezal: How about we take something easy?

Nisha: How about "The Old Nurse's story"?

Ashraf: Guys, we are doing what other groups have done before! Let's look in another path.

Qila: What other "part"?

Ashraf: How about, we don't search for stories, but poems. Be honest, we all are tired to read a
whole story and analyse it.

Qila: Oh yes, it's true. Madam Syamyra, who will give us 4 flats wink wink , mentioned that we can
use any texts. Not only a story or a movie. Poems are included too.

Poem 1

Nisha: How about the poem, "Antigonish"?

Alta: Oh I know that poem. I think I can recite it! I’ve send it in the W G

Yesterday, upon the stair,

I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

When I came home last night at three

The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn't see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door... (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair

A little man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away...

Sweeta: Chills. What is this poem about?

Alta: This poem is written by Hugh Mearns around the late 19th century. It was inspired by reports of
ghosts roaming near the stairs, at a haunted house in Antigonish Canada.

Nisha: This poem also is from the perspective of the poet itself. The whole poem explains about how
he saw a man at the staircase, but in actual he wasn't there. The poet feels that the man is waiting
for him when he comes home at 3 o’clock in the night. But when he looks around, there is no one in
the hall. The eerie part is when the poet says the man is not there but he feels the presence of the
man.

Sweeta: The poet also uses a ABAB rhyme scheme. Quite fascinating.

Ashraf: How do you explain the "Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door... (slam!)"?

Qila: Maybe it is about how the poet wants the ghost to go away and to be polite when closing the
doors?

Fezal: Think outside of the box guys, maybe it is the wind and Hugh Mearns was just following the
trend?

Qila: We can't conclude it like that!

POEM 2

Fezal: What are the other poems we can look into?

Qila: How about this? : 'Twas in the middle of the night,

To sleep young William tried,
When Mary's ghost came stealing in,
And stood at his bedside.

O William dear! O William dear!

My rest eternal ceases;
Alas! my everlasting peace
Is broken into pieces.

I thought the last of all my cares

Would end with my last minute;
But though I went to my long home,
I didn't stay long in it.

The body-snatchers they have come,

And made a snatch at me;
It's very hard them kind of men
Won't let a body be!

You thought that I was buried deep,

Quite decent-like and chary,
But from her grave in Mary-bone,
They've come and boned your Mary.

The arm that used to take your arm

Is took to Dr. Vyse;
And both my legs are gone to walk
The hospital at Guy's.

Sweeta: I vowed that you should have my hand,

But fate gives us denial;
You'll find it there, at Dr. Bell's,
In spirits and a phial.

As for my feet, the little feet

You used to call so pretty,
There's one, I know, in Bedford Row,
The t'other's in the City.

I can't tell where my head is gone,

But Doctor Carpue can;
As for my trunk, it's all packed up
To go by Pickford's van.

I wish you'd go to Mr. P.

And save me such a ride;
 I don't half like the outside place,
They've took for my inside.

The cock it crows - I must be gone!

My William, we must part!
But I'll be yours in death, altho'
Sir Astley has my heart.

Don't go to weep upon my grave,

And think that there I be;
They haven't left an atom there
Of my anatomie

Qila: This poem is about Mary, who has been grave robbed and her body parts are scattered at
medical schools and laboratories around London.. It's actually more comical way of a poem written
about anatomy. Poetry and science often combined in Romantic era writing. This piece of poem is
written in a ballad song sheet. So the rhyme schemes are... interesting?

Sweeta: I see that the author is Thomas Hood who was an English poet and humourist. He wrote this
poem or ballad in a manner of freeverse or the rhyme scheme is also written in ABCB manner where
the first line and the third line don't rhyme, but the second and last line does rhyme.
POEM 3

Nisha: Wow. There is so many interesting poems from the Victorian and Romantic Era. I wonder how
many more.

Ashraf: Wait. There is more. It is a poem written by Christina Rossetti. She is widely known for her
work on "Goblin Market". But there is a poem that caught my eye, which is "The Poor Ghost". It is a
poem which describes a man having a conversation with his female lover, who is back from the
dead. He questions her appearance and she responds that he will know death soon. He responds
explaining that he did love her but that love ends at death. At the end of "The Poor Ghost", the
female spirit is resolved to sleep in her grave until judgment day in which she will see her lover
again.

Fezal: Recite it then!

Ashraf:
‘Oh whence do you come, my dear friend, to me,
With your golden hair all fallen below your knee,
And your face as white as snowdrops on the lea,
And your voice as hollow as the hollow sea?’

‘From the other world I come back to you:

My locks are uncurled with dripping drenching dew,
You know the old, whilst I know the new:
But to-morrow you shall know this too.’

‘Oh not to-morrow into the dark, I pray;

Oh not to-morrow, too soon to go away:
Here I feel warm and well-content and gay:
Give me another year, another day.’

‘Am I so changed in a day and a night

That mine own only love shrinks from me with fright,
Is fain to turn away to left or right
And cover up his eyes from the sight?’

‘Indeed I loved you, my chosen friend,

I loved you for life, but life has an end;
Through sickness I was ready to tend:
But death mars all, which we cannot mend.

‘Indeed I loved you; I love you yet,

If you will stay where your bed is set,
Where I have planted a violet,
Which the wind waves, which the dew makes wet.’

‘Life is gone, then love too is gone,

It was a reed that I leant upon:
Never doubt I will leave you alone
And not wake you rattling bone with bone.
‘I go home alone to my bed,
Dug deep at the foot and deep at the head,
Roofed in with a load of lead,
Warm enough for the forgotten dead.

‘But why did your tears soak through the clay,

And why did your sobs wake me where I lay?
I was away, far enough away:
Let me sleep now till the Judgment Day.’

Fezal: I feel like we have so many great poems that can be used here. VicRomantic Era ROCKS!

Alta: Victorian and Romantic Era are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS!

Qila: Stop it you two. Now, let's get into doing our reports. Madam should be expecting so much
from us since we're the last group.

END