Christopher Philippo's Blog: Christmas Ghost Stories and Horror - Posts Tagged "new-year-ghost"

Frank Lebby Stanton (1857-1927) had been poet laureate of Georgia, and wrote a considerable amount of dreadful dialect poetry—including Christmas poems. Some of his poems featured ghosts, as here - a poem that is NOT in dialect, thankfully. New Year's ghost stories don't seem to have been especially common, but there were some. Both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day fall within the Twelve Days of Christmas so would remain a good time for them in general.

[From the Atlanta Constitution]
I.
He was dreaming of the New Year resolutions he would make
And frame in costly fashion—toobeautiful to break;
But—"Who are you?" he shouted, as he rose from troubled sleep,
And saw an awful shadow from a chilly corner creep.
"I'm the ghost," the shadow answered, in the iron tones of Fate.
"Of the New Year's resolution that you made in 1908!
II.
"You see me—how I'm limping? How the light of life I lack?
You let me fail,—remember?—and the tumble broke my back!
You mended me—you patched me here and there, while seasons fled,
But I'm armless, and I'm legless and like you, I lost my head!"
III.
Then the New Year resolutionist he wept him bitter tears
As he thought of—him as only one of wrecks of ruined years;
And he waltzed toward the sideboard, where decanters met his view,
With—"For old times' sake, old fellow, here's a New Year health to you!"
FRANK L. STANTON.
Baltimore American [MD]. January 1, 1909: 7.