It was a dark and wintry night,
And the dark was wet and cold,
And the wind, it blew among the trees,
T'would make your bones feel old.
And hurrying down a frozen path
Beside a frozen weir
I thought of the home and the fireside
And the smile of my dearest dear.

But I had miles of midnight trail
Before I could sit by her
And the night was dark, and the night was cold,
As I dreamed about that fire.
The moon was just a pale complaint
Through the shadow of the hill,
When I saw a sight I'll ne'er forget,
And it chills my old blood still.

There through the trees a spectre grim
Came fumbling through the wood,
Its eyes were crazed, as if to him,
There was no right, nor good.
His hair was wild, his eyes were wild,
And his maddened face was young.
He pierced the dark with a cry from the heart
In a babbling, evil tongue.

Oh, it was the ghost of Shane McBride
With a Molson's in his paw,
Condemned by sin to wander the wood
Forsook by life and law.
Forsook by daylight, and by love
And even the sunlit air,
He wandered, undead, through the night
With garbage in his hair.

Now some may say my eyes are old,
Some say my brains are tired,
But I know what I saw, and I know 'twas him,
His eyes with madness fired,
His clothes all torn, his soul Unborn,
Oh, I know full well what I saw.
T'was the ruined shade of Shane McBride,
With a Molson's in his paw.


Guttersnipe Amberly Chitlin
Never North Again
Madcap Chapbooks PRess, Ottowa, 2011