20+ Famous Halloween Poems by Renowned Poets (Classics!)

ByNancy William Updated on

Famous Halloween poems by Poe, Shakespeare, Silverstein, and Prelutsky — 26 poems with the copyright status of each, so you know what you may reprint.

Seven of the poems below are real public-domain excerpts, quoted exactly with the poet’s name and the source. The other nineteen are original poems I wrote, labelled so you always know which is which.

Every October the same list of famous halloween poems goes around: Poe, Shakespeare, Burns, Dickinson, Yeats — the canon, in the same order, on a hundred blogs. It is a good list. It is also incomplete in two ways that actually matter to a parent, a teacher, or a Sunday school leader standing at a photocopier.

The first problem is the missing poets. Ask a nine-year-old to name a Halloween poem and they will not say Poe. They will say Shel Silverstein or Jack Prelutsky, because those are the poets who made spooky verse funny instead of frightening. Neither poet can be reprinted — both are still in copyright — so most of the pages that quote them are doing it without permission. This post will tell you exactly which books to buy instead, and give you original poems in that same register that you are free to print.

The second problem is that nobody tells you the copyright status of the poem you are about to copy. Public domain and under copyright look identical on a PDF. So every entry below carries its status in the heading, and the seven public-domain excerpts were each checked against a primary source before they went in.

What is in this post:

  • Section 1: 9 original poems in the Silverstein and Prelutsky register, plus the exact books to buy for the real thing
  • Section 2: Poe’s gothic autumn verses — 4 public-domain excerpts plus 5 original poems in that register
  • Section 3: Shakespeare’s cauldron stanzas — 3 public-domain excerpts plus 5 original charms
  • Every public-domain line is quoted exactly and attributed; every original is labelled as mine

TL;DR — the quick version
– 7 public-domain excerpts, verified word for word: Poe (4) and Shakespeare (3)
– 19 original poems, free for you to print, read aloud, or put on a card
– Nothing by Silverstein or Prelutsky is reproduced here, because their work is still under copyright
– Read a poem aloud tonight, and the copyright question never comes up at all

A plain-English word about copyright, because it decides what you can print: poems published in the United States before 1930 are in the public domain, which covers everything by Poe and Shakespeare in this post. Poems published from 1978 onward are protected for the author’s life plus seventy years, which is why the Silverstein and Prelutsky favourites are off limits. If you are reading aloud or reciting from memory, none of this matters. It only matters the moment you photocopy.

Table of Contents

Top 3 Picks

#Best forWhy I like itGo read
1A classroom read-aloudThe most famous Halloween stanza in American poetry, and every line of it is legal to copyThe Raven, closing stanza
2A kid who says poems are boringFunny, short, first-person, and it turns on one joke about chocolateTrick-or-Treating in the Rain
3A school assembly in three voicesTwo lines of Shakespeare that every child already half-knowsThe Refrain from Macbeth

shel silverstein & jack prelutsky halloween poems

Here is the honest situation. Shel Silverstein (1930–1999) and Jack Prelutsky (born 1940) are the two poets whose Halloween verse children actually ask for, and not one line of theirs can be reproduced here. Silverstein’s spooky poems are gathered across Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974), A Light in the Attic (1981), and Falling Up (1996). Prelutsky wrote an entire Halloween collection, It’s Halloween (Greenwillow, 1977), reprinted in 2002 as Halloween Countdown, along with Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep and The Headless Horseman Rides Tonight. Buy the books — they earn their shelf space.

What I can do is write new poems in that register: short lines, a first-person child’s voice, everyday complaints, and a twist. Nine of them, and they are yours to print.

### 1. My Monster Ate My Homework (Original Poem)
[ 🍽️ chew loudly on the first line ]

My monster ate my homework,
Which sounds like a lame excuse;
But here’s the thing: he ate it —
And then he ate my shoes.
He ate my sister’s sandwich,
He ate the garden hose;
He’s burping on the sofa
And picking at his toes.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 6 to 10, and anyone who has ever blamed a dog
  • ⏳ The Timing: A five-minute filler, or a read-aloud before homework starts
  • 📍 The Medium: Read aloud in a monster voice, which is the entire point
  • 💡 Why this works: It borrows the oldest excuse in childhood and makes the monster real, escalating from homework to shoes to the garden hose
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a lecture about telling the truth with a poem that simply enjoys the lie

### 2. The Ghost Who Wouldn’t Say Boo (Original Poem)
[ 👻 whisper the whole thing ]

I met a ghost on Tuesday
Who would not say a word;
He floated by the mailbox
And looked a little bored.

I said, “You’re meant to scare me.”
He shrugged and turned away;
I think I understand him —
He’s shy, and that’s okay.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 5 to 9, and any child who is shy themselves
  • ⏳ The Timing: A bedtime poem, read quietly
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and left on a pillow for a child who worries
  • 💡 Why this works: The twist is kindness rather than a jump — the ghost fails at haunting because he is bashful, which is a very Silverstein move
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a haunting with a ghost who is simply no good at his job

### 3. I Grew a Pumpkin in My Shoe (Original Poem)
[ 👟 tap your foot twice on every rhyme ]

I grew a pumpkin in my shoe,
I planted it by mistake;
It grew so big so quickly
The shoe began to ache.

My teacher says to take it off.
I keep it on — that’s that.
A pumpkin that has grown in there
Is warmer than a cat.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 5 to 9, and anyone with a beloved pair of disgusting shoes
  • ⏳ The Timing: A silly read for a rainy afternoon
  • 📍 The Medium: Read aloud while a child draws the shoe in question
  • 💡 Why this works: Absurd premise, entirely logical consequences, and a closing argument the reader actually agrees with
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a poem about carving a pumpkin with a pumpkin nobody planned for

### 4. My Costume Is a Cardboard Box (Original Poem)
[ 📦 mime cutting a hole in a box ]

I’m going as a cardboard box
With buttons drawn in pen;
My sister’s going as a broom,
And Dad’s a chicken — again.

We made them all from things we had,
We didn’t pay a cent;
Our neighbour laughed and called us “junk” —
We knew just what she meant.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 6 to 11, and every family who has ever run out of time
  • ⏳ The Timing: The afternoon of Halloween, when the store-bought plan collapses
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and taped to the inside of a costume box
  • 💡 Why this works: “And Dad’s a chicken — again” is the whole poem in five words, and the neighbour’s insult is the compliment
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a costume contest with the far more common homemade scramble

### 5. Trick-or-Treating in the Rain (Original Poem)
[ ☔ drum your fingers on the table for the rain ]

The rain came down on Halloween,
It filled my paper hat;
My brother slipped on someone’s porch
And sat on their welcome mat.

Our candy bags got soggy,
The chocolate turned to goo —
But soggy chocolate is still chocolate,
And that is always true.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 6 to 11, and every parent who has stood in a wet driveway
  • ⏳ The Timing: The night after a rained-out trick-or-treat
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and read aloud, followed by a genuine discussion of goo
  • 💡 Why this works: The philosophy in the last two lines is bulletproof as far as a child is concerned, which makes it a closing line they will quote back at you
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a perfect golden autumn night with the real, wet, funny one

### 6. The Candy Tax (Original Poem)
[ 🍫 take an imaginary sweet from an imaginary bag ]

My father says there is a tax
On every bag of sweets;
He takes a couple for himself
And says he “keeps receipts.”

My mother says that isn’t true,
But look what’s in her hand:
She took the peanut butter cups.
I’ll never understand.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 7 to 11, and every parent who will be accused
  • ⏳ The Timing: The morning after trick-or-treating, over the sweet pile
  • 📍 The Medium: Read aloud at breakfast, then enforced
  • 💡 Why this works: It gives the child the vocabulary for something they have long suspected, and the parents cannot deny a single line of it
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a poem about counting candy with a poem about who really eats it

### 7. There’s a Witch in the Bathroom (Original Poem)
[ 🚿 knock three times on the door ]

There’s a witch in the bathroom
And she will not unlock the door;
I’ve told her twice that breakfast
Is ready, and once more.

She says her hair needs fixing,
She says the mirror’s cracked;
I don’t mind her staying,
As long as she comes back.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 5 to 9, and households with exactly one bathroom
  • ⏳ The Timing: A morning poem, read while someone hogs the mirror
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and taped to the bathroom door
  • 💡 Why this works: The witch is not a threat — she is a sibling, and every child recognises the joke instantly
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a spell-casting witch with one doing her hair

### 8. Three Pumpkins on My Bed (Original Poem)
[ 🎃 count to three on your fingers ]

There are three pumpkins on my bed
And one is on my pillow;
I’ve asked them all to leave, but they
Just wobble like a willow.

I told my mother, “There’s a squash
In my bed, and it’s still growing.”
She said, “Then sleep the other way,
And mind the one that’s glowing.”

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 5 to 9, and any child who smuggles produce indoors
  • ⏳ The Timing: Bedtime, after pumpkins have been brought home
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and read by torchlight
  • 💡 Why this works: The mother’s reply is calmly practical, which is the funniest possible response to a growing squash
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a monster under the bed with a vegetable on the bed

### 9. My Skeleton Is Falling Apart (Original Poem)
[ 🦴 rattle your hands loosely ]

My skeleton is coming loose,
He’s shedding hands and knees;
He left an elbow in the hall
And scattered all his keys.

I told him, “You’re my costume,
You can’t just fall to pieces.”
He said, “I’m not the problem —
It’s the tape that always creases.”

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 6 to 10, and every costume held together with tape
  • ⏳ The Timing: Right before leaving the house on Halloween
  • 📍 The Medium: Read aloud while the tape is located
  • 💡 Why this works: The skeleton blames the tape, which is exactly what a real child blames, and the poem takes his side
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a rattling skeleton with one held together by a parent’s last-minute repair

edgar allan poe gothic autumn verses

Poe is the poet everyone names when they name a Halloween poem, and four of the excerpts below are his, quoted exactly from public-domain sources. The other five were written in the same register: a first-person narrator, a decaying setting, long vowel sounds, and a rhyme that keeps circling back. Poe’s own writing about this season is less about ghosts than about grief in cold weather, and these originals follow that lead.

### 10. The Raven, Closing Stanza by Edgar Allan Poe (1845 · Public Domain)
[ 🐦 say “nevermore” once, slowly, then stop ]

— Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven, closing stanza (1845 · public domain · poets.org/poem/raven)

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Grades 6 and up, and adults who only know the first line
  • ⏳ The Timing: A read-aloud on Halloween night, lights low
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and read aloud, or performed as a dramatic monologue
  • 💡 Why this works: Almost everyone can quote the opening, and almost nobody has heard the ending, where the bird simply stays — the quiet horror is in “still is sitting”
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces the over-quoted first stanza with the stanza that actually finishes the thought

### 11. The House on Cedar Street (Original Poem)
[ 🏚️ drop your voice to a murmur ]

The house on Cedar Street is still,
The lamp is on, the gate is shut;
No footsteps move upon the hill,
No knock, no knock, no matter what.

They say a lady lived there once
And never went away;
They say she lights the lamp herself
At every close of day.

And when the children pass the gate,
They keep their voices low;
They do not need to know her name
To know that they should go.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Grades 4 and up, and anyone who grew up near one such house
  • ⏳ The Timing: A read-aloud that ends a lesson on Poe’s settings
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and read by a window at dusk
  • 💡 Why this works: Nothing supernatural happens. The poem withholds the ghost entirely, which is the technique Poe used in his best haunted-house work
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a rattling chain with a lamp somebody keeps lighting

### 12. Ulalume, Stanza Eight by Edgar Allan Poe (1847 · Public Domain)
[ 🌫️ read it slowly, one line at a time ]

— Edgar Allan Poe, Ulalume, from the eighth stanza (1847 · public domain · poets.org/poem/ulalume)

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere—
As the leaves that were withering and sere;
And I cried: “It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed—I journeyed down here!—
That I brought a dread burden down here—
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon hath tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber—
This misty mid region of Weir—
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.”

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Grades 8 and up, and adults who love Poe’s sound more than his plots
  • ⏳ The Timing: The centrepiece of a Poe lesson, read aloud in full
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and annotated, with the repeated lines marked in pencil
  • 💡 Why this works: Poe repeats whole lines with small changes, so the reader feels the narrator’s mind circling, and “ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir” is the finest Halloween phrase in American poetry
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces “The Raven” yet again with the poem Poe scholars call his greatest Halloween work

### 13. A Fever in October (Original Poem)
[ 🌡️ press the back of your hand to your forehead ]

The fever came in October,
It settled in the walls;
It shook the maple windows
And walked the empty halls.

It slept inside the curtains,
It hid beneath the stair;
It left the house at midnight,
And took the cold air.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Grades 5 and up, and readers who prefer dread to jump scares
  • ⏳ The Timing: A quiet read for a windy night
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and read aloud in a flat, even voice
  • 💡 Why this works: It never says the house is haunted — it personifies the illness instead, which is how Poe made ordinary things frightening
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a haunted house with a sickness that happens to live in one

### 14. Spirits of the Dead, Opening Stanza by Edgar Allan Poe (1827 · Public Domain)
[ 🕯️ light a candle before you start ]

— Edgar Allan Poe, Spirits of the Dead, opening stanza (1827 · public domain · poets.org/poem/spirits-dead)

Thy soul shall find itself alone
‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Grades 7 and up, and anyone teaching Poe’s early style
  • ⏳ The Timing: A four-line opening to a lesson, read twice
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed as a bookmark, or copied into a notebook
  • 💡 Why this works: Poe wrote this at eighteen, and the tomb-stone rhyme still lands — it is the clearest proof that his voice arrived early
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces an elaborate ghost story with four lines about being alone

### 15. The Bell in the Fog (Original Poem)
[ 🔔 ring an imaginary bell twice ]

The bell in the fog keeps ringing,
Though nobody pulls the rope;
It rings for the boats that are missing,
It rings for the ones without hope.

The fog has a hand on the harbour,
The fog has a hand on the hill;
The bell goes on ringing and ringing,
And everything else is still.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Grades 5 and up, and readers who like the sea in their ghost stories
  • ⏳ The Timing: A read-aloud on a foggy morning, if you are lucky enough to get one
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and read aloud, with the repetition emphasised
  • 💡 Why this works: The repetition of “ringing and ringing” does the work that Poe did with repetition — the sound will not stop, and that is the whole horror
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a haunted lighthouse with a bell nobody is pulling

### 16. Annabel Lee, Opening Stanza by Edgar Allan Poe (1849 · Public Domain)
[ 💔 say the name “Annabel Lee” as if it is precious ]

— Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee, opening stanza (1849 · public domain · poets.org/poem/annabel-lee)

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Grades 6 and up, and any class studying repetition
  • ⏳ The Timing: The gentler poem to end a Poe lesson on
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and read aloud, then read again with the repeated phrases underlined
  • 💡 Why this works: It is gothic without being frightening, so it works with readers who find “The Raven” too much
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a graveyard scene with a love poem that happens to be set in one

### 17. Portrait of an Empty Room (Original Poem)
[ 🪑 pull out a chair and leave it pulled out ]

The chair is pulled out from the table,
The book lies open, face-down;
The candle has burned to a river,
The fire has gone to the ground.

Whoever was sitting is gone now,
And nobody makes a sound.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Grades 6 and up, and readers who like their ghosts implied
  • ⏳ The Timing: A short read at the end of a lesson, with the lights off
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and left as a puzzle for a student to annotate
  • 💡 Why this works: Every detail is forensic — the chair, the book, the candle — and the reader assembles the story themselves
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a visible ghost with an absence the reader has to notice

### 18. October, Simmering Down (Original Poem)
[ 🍂 let your voice fall at the end of each line ]

The year is simmering down to nothing,
The leaves have given up the ghost;
The apple’s in the cellar,
The scarecrow’s at his post.

And I am standing at the window,
Counting what the season cost.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Grades 6 and up, and adults who feel the season turning
  • ⏳ The Timing: The last few days of October, at dusk
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and kept in a journal, or read aloud by a window
  • 💡 Why this works: It borrows Poe’s long vowels and melancholy without any of his terror, so it works as a bridge between Halloween and November
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a horror poem with a poem about the end of autumn, which is what Poe’s autumn verses were really about

shakespeare double double toil and trouble stanzas

Somewhere in every Halloween season, a child is asked to recite “Double, double toil and trouble” and discovers that the words are oddly satisfying to say. That is not an accident. The three witches in Macbeth speak in trochaic tetrameter — a strong beat followed by a weak one, four times a line — and dropping the last beat, as the refrain does, makes the line feel unfinished, like a spell that needs to keep going. Here are the three public-domain excerpts, followed by five original charms built on the same beat.

### 19. The Refrain: Double, Double Toil and Trouble by William Shakespeare (1606 · Public Domain)
[ 🥁 stamp twice for each line ]

— William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I (c. 1606 · public domain · poets.org/poem/macbeth-act-iv-scene-i-round-about-cauldron-go)

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Everyone. This is the one poem here that most children already half-know
  • ⏳ The Timing: The very start of a Halloween lesson, chanted as a class
  • 📍 The Medium: Chanted out loud — it is built to be chanted, not read
  • 💡 Why this works: It is only two lines and completely immune to being forgotten, which makes it the perfect first poem for a nervous reciter
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a long poem with the two lines everyone actually came for

### 20. Charm for a Lost Mitten (Original Poem)
[ 🧤 hold up one hand, then the other ]

Mitten, mitten, gone astray,
Come back home on Hallows Day;
Find the pocket, find the hand,
Find the path where walkers stand.

Wool and thumb and little string,
Bring the missing winter thing;
Mitten, mitten, lost and cold,
Come back home and let me hold.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 5 to 10, and every household with a box of unmatched mittens
  • ⏳ The Timing: A five-minute writing activity — ask each child for their own lost object
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and used as a model for the child’s own charm
  • 💡 Why this works: It copies the witches’ structure exactly — two strong beats, a repeated opening word, a rhyming pair — but applies it to something a child has genuinely lost
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces eye of newt with a mitten, which is a problem a child can actually solve

### 21. The Cauldron Recipe by William Shakespeare (1606 · Public Domain)
[ 🫧 stir an imaginary pot on every line ]

— William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I (c. 1606 · public domain · poets.org/poem/macbeth-act-iv-scene-i-round-about-cauldron-go)

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Grades 5 and up, and every child who likes a list of disgusting ingredients
  • ⏳ The Timing: A poetry lesson on rhythm, or a Halloween assembly piece
  • 📍 The Medium: Performed by three voices in turn, one couplet each
  • 💡 Why this works: The ingredients rhyme in pairs, so the passage teaches rhyme scheme without ever using the word — the ear learns it first
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a generic witch poem with the actual shopping list Shakespeare wrote

### 22. Three Witches on a Video Call (Original Poem)
[ 📱 hold an imaginary phone at arm’s length ]

Three witches sat on a video call
To plan the night’s affair;
The first one’s screen was frozen,
And the second wasn’t there.

“Now double, double, toil and trouble,”
The third one tried to say;
The wifi dropped, the screen went dark,
And that was Halloween Day.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 8 to 12, and every class that has survived remote learning
  • ⏳ The Timing: A funny counterweight after the Shakespeare passage
  • 📍 The Medium: Read aloud by three readers, one per witch
  • 💡 Why this works: The witches fail for a completely modern reason, and the joke lands harder because the metre is still Shakespeare’s
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces an ancient coven with a dropped connection

### 23. By the Pricking of My Thumbs by William Shakespeare (1606 · Public Domain)
[ 👍 prick your thumb with a fingertip ]

— William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I (c. 1606 · public domain · folger.edu)

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Grades 4 and up, and anyone who has heard the phrase without knowing where it came from
  • ⏳ The Timing: The line to teach before reading the rest of the scene
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and recited, with a finger pricked on cue
  • 💡 Why this works: It is the most borrowed couplet in horror, and a child who learns it here will recognise it in films, novels, and titles for the rest of their life
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a disembodied spooky voice with a witch who notices her own thumb

### 24. Charm for a Dark Hallway (Original Poem)
[ 🔦 switch an imaginary torch on ]

Darkness, darkness, move aside,
I have already tried;
Lantern, lantern, burn and glow,
Show me where to go.

If the hallway holds a ghost,
He can move. I’m not his host.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 5 to 9, and every child who needs the hall light on
  • ⏳ The Timing: Bedtime, recited on the way to the bathroom
  • 📍 The Medium: Recited out loud in the hallway itself, which is the only place it works
  • 💡 Why this works: It gives a frightened child something to say, and the last couplet is funny enough to break the tension
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a scary dark hallway with a hallway that just needs a light

### 25. The Kettle Chant (Original Poem)
[ 🫖 hum the last line like a kettle ]

Kettle, kettle, sing and hum,
Tell me if the winter’s come;
Spoon and saucer, cup and plate,
Tell me if it’s getting late.

Salt and cinnamon and thyme,
Kettle, keep your steady time;
Every witch I’ve ever known
Likes a kettle of her own.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 5 to 10, and anyone who wants a domestic witch poem
  • ⏳ The Timing: A kitchen read-aloud, ideally with the kettle actually on
  • 📍 The Medium: Printed and propped up against the spice rack
  • 💡 Why this works: The list of kitchen things builds like Shakespeare’s ingredient list, and the last two lines quietly tell you that ordinary witches are homebodies
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a cauldron with a kettle, which is the witch’s tool most of us actually own

### 26. Charm for Bedtime, October Thirty-First (Original Poem)
[ 🌙 yawn on the final word ]

Candle, candle, gutter down,
Let the last of the lanterns drown;
Candy, candy, put away —
Tomorrow is another day.

Ghost and goblin, go to bed,
Rest your bones and rest your head;
Monster, monster, close your eye —
The moon is going, and so am I.

🔍 The Context Matrix

  • 👤 Who is this for? Ages 4 to 9, and any child who cannot settle after trick-or-treating
  • ⏳ The Timing: Bedtime on October 31, lights out
  • 📍 The Medium: Recited quietly in the dark, one couplet per breath
  • 💡 Why this works: It gives the night a formal ending, which is exactly what an over-excited child needs, and it sends the monsters to bed before the child goes
  • 🚫 The Cliché it Avoids: Replaces a spooky goodnight with one that includes the ghosts in the instruction

Frequently Asked Questions

### Q1. What is the most famous Halloween poem of all time?
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven (1845) is the poem most often named, and Robert Burns’ Halloween (1785) is the most famous poem actually written about the holiday itself. Shakespeare’s witch passages from Macbeth are the most widely quoted lines, because “Double, double toil and trouble” is the one Halloween verse nearly everybody can finish from memory.

### Q2. Are Shel Silverstein’s Halloween poems free to reprint?
No. Shel Silverstein died in 1999, and his poems are still protected by copyright, so they cannot be reproduced in a handout, a newsletter, or a blog post. This is why you will not find his lines in this post even though he is one of the two poets children ask for first. You may read them aloud from a book you own, and that is it.

### Q3. Where can I find Jack Prelutsky’s Halloween poems?
In It’s Halloween (Greenwillow, 1977), illustrated by Marylin Hafner and reprinted in 2002 as Halloween Countdown. Prelutsky also wrote Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep and The Headless Horseman Rides Tonight. Buy the books rather than photocopying, because his work is still under copyright as of 2026.

### Q4. Is “Double, double toil and trouble” public domain?
Yes. Macbeth was written around 1606, and the play has been in the public domain for centuries, so the witches’ lines can be quoted, printed, and performed freely. The two-line refrain and the cauldron recipe stanza in this post are reproduced exactly from the public-domain text.

### Q5. Which Halloween poems can I legally read aloud at a school event?
Anything in the public domain, which includes all of Poe, Shakespeare, Burns, Dickinson, and every poem published before 1930 — that covers the seven excerpts in this post. For anything published later, including Silverstein and Prelutsky, reading from a purchased copy is normally fine, but projecting, printing, or reposting the text is not. In 2026 the safest rule of thumb is still this: perform from a book you own, or use the public domain.

### Q6. What is Poe’s most Halloween-appropriate poem?
Ulalume (1847) is the strongest candidate, and not only because it is set in a graveyard in October on the night the dead are said to rise. Poe specialists make the same argument — the Poe scholar Kevin J. Hayes has called it the greatest Halloween poem in American literature — and its “ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir” is a phrase worth knowing.

### Q7. Why do people quote Shakespeare on Halloween?
Because the three witches in Macbeth are the original Halloween scene in English literature: a cauldron, a chant, and a prophecy. The lines are also unusually easy to memorise, since they run in trochaic tetrameter with a strong beat at the start of every line, and the refrain deliberately drops its final beat so the spell sounds unfinished.

### Q8. What famous Halloween poems are still under copyright?
Silverstein’s collections — Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, and Falling Up — and Prelutsky’s It’s Halloween and Nightmares are all still protected. So are most twentieth-century Halloween poems you will find on a modern blog, which is worth remembering before you photocopy a classroom handout in 2026. Public-domain classics and original poems are the two safe routes.

Hi, I’m Nancy! 👋
A mother, a writer, and an advocate for family wellness, I’m here to share my journey and insights with you. As a proud mom of three (two boys and a girl), my days are filled with laughter, learning, and the occasional challenge. Motherhood has taught me the art of multitasking, patience, and finding joy in the little things.

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.