The Ghost of the Haynesville Bride

+ A poem. Blank Verse. The Legend of the Haynesville Bride. +


Listen, my friend, to the story I tell
Of the Ghost of the Haynesville Bride.
On the side of a lonely Maine highway she walks
Desperately seeking a ride.

Just married, they are, this bride and her groom,
As they travel the treacherous road
That runs through the Haynesville Woods of Aroostook,
On a snow-lashed December night.

Through the blackness he drives on this dark avenue,
Its pavement encrusted with ice.
With its hills and its sharp curves, the bane of all drivers,
And "A Tombstone Every Mile..."

Onward he drives, too fast for conditions,
Blinded by snow and whiskey.
Beside him, contentedly sleeping, his bride,
As they journey southward from Haynesville...

Deep in the forest, at a bend in the road,
The curve the driver can't see;
Slipping and sliding, now out of control,
The car smashes into a pole.

Her beloved beside her lies dead in the cold,
But she must escape from the wreck.
Broken and bleeding, she crawls to the roadway
And begins to walk, step by step...

On this bleak, forlorn night, in the midst of the forest,
On the twisting road south of Haynesville,
It is said that the winter claimed two lives that night-
The groom and his beloved bride.

Three score the number of years now gone by,
And the Haynesville Woods remain thick;
On the side of the road she still walks on some nights-
The Ghost of the Haynesville Bride.


SOURCES:

Local Legend

"A Tombstone Every Mile," recorded by Dick Curless on Allagash Records in 1965. Words and Music by Daniel Fulkerson.