Poetry in The Haunting in Connecticut

Last night I saw The Haunting in Connecticut, and I skipped from the theater, delighted that one of the characters had quoted poetry! How serendipitous for the first day of National Poetry Month!  It also just so happened to be a poem that one of my own characters recently quoted to another character as they approached a dark stairwell in a bookstore.

Here is the poem in its entirety, though it’s usual to hear the first verse by itself:

Antigonish  by Hughes Mearns. 

As I was going up the stair

I saw a man who wasn’t there

He wasn’t there again today

Oh, how 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.

 ((The other poem in the movie is a folk rhyme, author unknown, and there are multiple versions of it (read more here). Near as I can remember, the version in the movie goes like this:

One bright day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight,
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot one another,
A deaf policeman heard the noise,
Came and killed the two dead boys.))

 

More Spooky Poetry 

and yet more Creepy poetry

 

Thanks for stopping by! Leave me a comment and let me know why you decided to look up this poem after seeing the movie.