Fall 2022: All Things Spooky
Poetry
To Meet the Midnight Beast: A Verse Retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula
by Andre Peltlier
by Andre Peltlier
By hook or cook, carriage or boat
John Harker, he flew East
Towards dark Carpathian Alpine peaks
To meet the midnight beast.
He left his love behind in York;
She swooned to see him go,
But soon poor Mina moonlight saw
Through Whitby’s misty glow.
In Transylvanian forest wood
Where Nighttime’s children sing,
The shadows live and stalk the land
To praise their midnight king.
He rises with the setting sun
From catacombs departs
To feed his brides, the dreadful three,
Upon the living hearts.
In England, Mina waits for love
And waits with Lucy true.
When Lucy meets that awful thing
She’ll wake from death anew.
The ship of ghosts, she flies with Death
To herald coming doom.
She lands with coffins in the hold
She lands with ghastly gloom.
Through Whitby streets, he stalks his prey;
Fair Luce invites him in.
She follows him to Carfax lair
And to his den of sin.
As Jonathan attempts return
In Budapest to sleep,
He races now against the clock
To lib’rate love so deep.
And now the hunter dost arrive
With cross and wooden stake.
And now Van Helsing prays to God
Whom Count of Fangs forsake.
Harker’s passage booked and bound
Up England’s Eastern shore
Where Seward, Morris, Holmwood fought
To save she they adore.
As from the veins they pumped in vain
And Lucy died and rose,
So too the garlic Mina wore,
So too the lovestruck beaus.
Oh, when Westerna rode the winds
And feasted on her kill
No clouds would part, no birds would sing
No creature living still.
In Seward’s cells they planned the hunt
To Piccadilly Lane,
And South of Mayfair tracked the beast
As Renfield went insane.
The midnight fiend with box of earth
Fled homeward on the wave,
But on his heals the stout of heart
For Mina’s soul to save.
They overtook him on the road
And took his fearful head.
With Mina freed, the midnight beast
Turned ash forever dead.
John Harker, he flew East
Towards dark Carpathian Alpine peaks
To meet the midnight beast.
He left his love behind in York;
She swooned to see him go,
But soon poor Mina moonlight saw
Through Whitby’s misty glow.
In Transylvanian forest wood
Where Nighttime’s children sing,
The shadows live and stalk the land
To praise their midnight king.
He rises with the setting sun
From catacombs departs
To feed his brides, the dreadful three,
Upon the living hearts.
In England, Mina waits for love
And waits with Lucy true.
When Lucy meets that awful thing
She’ll wake from death anew.
The ship of ghosts, she flies with Death
To herald coming doom.
She lands with coffins in the hold
She lands with ghastly gloom.
Through Whitby streets, he stalks his prey;
Fair Luce invites him in.
She follows him to Carfax lair
And to his den of sin.
As Jonathan attempts return
In Budapest to sleep,
He races now against the clock
To lib’rate love so deep.
And now the hunter dost arrive
With cross and wooden stake.
And now Van Helsing prays to God
Whom Count of Fangs forsake.
Harker’s passage booked and bound
Up England’s Eastern shore
Where Seward, Morris, Holmwood fought
To save she they adore.
As from the veins they pumped in vain
And Lucy died and rose,
So too the garlic Mina wore,
So too the lovestruck beaus.
Oh, when Westerna rode the winds
And feasted on her kill
No clouds would part, no birds would sing
No creature living still.
In Seward’s cells they planned the hunt
To Piccadilly Lane,
And South of Mayfair tracked the beast
As Renfield went insane.
The midnight fiend with box of earth
Fled homeward on the wave,
But on his heals the stout of heart
For Mina’s soul to save.
They overtook him on the road
And took his fearful head.
With Mina freed, the midnight beast
Turned ash forever dead.
