Bronxite, Arthur Cleveland Coxe, wrote Halloween
Arthur Cleveland Coxe
was a prolifi c writer and is remembered
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, D BTR ECEMBER 7-13, 2018 65
at this time of year
not for his numerous religious
treatises but rather for his epic
poem, Halloween. I refer to it
as epic because the earliest editions
of the poem had 189 pages
while the 2010 edition has been
expanded to 208 pages. It was
written here in the Bronx in
1842 while Coxe was a deacon
serving St. Anne’s Episcopal
Church in Morrisania.
The full title of the book
is “Halloween: A Romaunt,
with lays, meditative and devotional.”
The word romaunt
is rarely used in modern times
but in the 1800s meant “a romantic
story in verse.” The
opening word of the title “Halloween,”
may be misleading to
today’s readers who might be
expecting something macabre.
One popular verse is:
‘Tis the night - the night
Of the grave’s delight,
And the warlocks are at
their play;
Ye think that without
The wild winds shout,
But no, it is they - it is they.
Edgar Allan Poe was among
his reviewers and didn’t care
for Coxe’s writing.
Perhaps he was not quite
macabre enough. Poe had already
published “Tales of the
Grotesque and Arabesque” in
1839 and was slowly making a
name for himself.
It was “The Raven,” published
in The Evening Mirror
on January 29, 1845, however,
which brought him true recognition
as a writer although
he was only paid $9.00 for the
effort. There are very few people
who don’t know a couple of
lines of that popular poem such
as:
Once upon a midnight
dreary, while I pondered weak
and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious
volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a
tapping,
As of some one gently rapping,
rapping at my chamber
door.
`’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered,
`tapping at my chamber
door -
Only this, and nothing
more.’
Poe was a master at creating
visions of incredible dread
such as the fear of being buried
alive. He liked to infer what
could happen rather than state
the obvious.
Thanks to him and other
writers, we’ve come to associate
Halloween with ghosts, goblins
and skeletons rather than
the eve of All Saints Day.
Young children associate
the holiday with “trick or treating”
but even that harks back
to the sixteenth century.
William Shakespeare referred
to it in his comedy “Two
Gentlemen of Verona” when
one of the characters accuses
his master of acting like a beggar
at Hallowmas.
My favorite Halloween tale
is still Washington Irving’s
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”
Ichabod Crane’s ride through
the dark and bleak cemetery is
a fear-inspiring sight.
I drove past it a few weeks
ago on Route 9 and the image
of Ichabad Crane immediately
loomed to mind.
One of the things that defi -
nitely has changed for the better
about Halloween is the carving
of pumpkins for lanterns
rather than turnips as they did
in the days of yore did in Ireland
and England. Pumpkins
do seem like a far better alternative
as they tend to be bigger
and far more versatile for creating
ghoulish monsters.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
REPRINTED FROM 11-3-2011