Youtube: "The Haunted House" poem by Vic Crume

[leno...@yahoo.com]

I assume the owner of the video knows what he's talking about when he
says that Crume's name was actually Victoria. He simply reads the poem
aloud for one minute. (I always thought it was pretty eerie too.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXdFGENU0Pg

Here's the cover of the book (co-authored by Gladys Schwarcz):

http://www.poetix.net/images/wp5r7zjq.jpg

And here's the poem (it may not be accurate - I don't have the book in
front of me):

Not a window was broken
And the paint wasn't peeling
Not a porch step sagged
Yet there was a feeling
That beyond the door
And into the hall
This was the house
Of no one at all.
No one who breathed
Nor laughed
Nor ate
Nor said "I love,"
Or said "I hate,"
Yet SOMETHING walked
Along the stair
Something that was
And wasn't there.
And that is why
The weeds grow high
And even the moon
Races fearfully by
For SOMETHING walks
Along the stair
Something that is
And isn't there.

(Apparently, Scholastic Records recorded parts of the book in 1970!)

Here's the table of contents for the book ("The Ghost Catcher" is
probably my favorite - but OTOH, David McCord is always great - and so
is Louis Untermeyer):

The Haunted House and Other Spooky Poems and Tales ed. Vic Crume &
Gladys Schwarcz

* 7 * Old Cornish Litany * Anon. * pm
* 8 * The Haunted House * Vic Crume * pm
* 10 * A Skeleton Once in Khartoum * Author Unknown * pm
* 10 * In Memory of Anna Hopewell * Author Unknown * pm
* 11 * The Devil's Pocket * George Mendoza * ss The Crack in the
Wall & Other Terribly Weird Tales, Dial, 1968
* 17 * The Old Wife and the Ghost * James Reeves * pm
* 19 * Mother Goose * Irene Sekula * pm Fantastic Story Magazine
Spr '54
* 19 * The Superstitious Ghost * Arthur Guitterman * pm
* 21 * The Flattered Flying Fish (The Shark and the Flying Fish) *
E. V. Rieu * pm
* 23 * Ruth and Johnnie * Author Unknown * pm
* 23 * It Isn't the Cough * Author Unknown * pm
* 24 * Adventures of Isabel * Ogden Nash * pm
* 26 * The Velvet Ribbon * Ann McGovern * vi
* 28 * Little Willie * Author Unknown * pm
* 28 * Jerry Jones * Author Unknown * pm
* 29 * The Cradle That Rocked by Itself * Maria Leach, as told by
* vi
* 32 * The Wreck of the Hesperus * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow * pm
* 38 * The Yarn of the "Nancy Bell" * William Schwenck Gilbert *
sg Current Literature Oct '01
* 42 * A Sea Dirge [from The Tempest] * William Shakespeare * pm,
1613
* 43 * The Ghost Catcher * E. B. Chance, retold by * ss; a tale
from India.
* 48 * The Great Auk's Ghost * Ralph Hodgson * pm Collected Poems,
Macmillan
* 48 * Any Day Now * David McCord * pm
* 49 * from The Witch of Willowby Wood * Rowena Bennett * pm
* 49 * A Young Lady from Glitch * Tamara Kitt * pm
* 50 * The Purist * Ogden Nash * pm, 1935
* 50 * The Kilkenny Cats * Author Unknown * pm
* 51 * Dust * Sydney King Russell * pm
* 53 * Windy Nights * Robert Louis Stevenson * pm
* 54 * Voices * Felice Holman * pm
* 55 * Winter Moon * Langston Hughes * pm
* 55 * November Night * Adelaide Crapsey * pm
* 56 * The Erl-King * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; trans. by Louis
Untermeyer * pm
* 58 * Shadows Before Dawn from A Song of Sherwood * Alfred Noyes
* pm
* 59 * from Sir Roderic's Song * William Schwenck Gilbert * pm
* 60 * The Bat * Theodore Roethke * pm
* 61 * The Listeners * Walter de la Mare * pm The Living Age Apr
29 '11
* 63 * The Red Room * H. G. Wells * ss The Idler Mar, 1896; edited
and abridged.
* 77 * The Two Old Women of Mumbling Hill * James Reeves * pm
* 79 * Spooks * Nathalia Crane * pm

Vic Crume was well known in the 1960s and 1970s for writing short
novelizations of Disney movies, such as "The Parent Trap," "Herbie
Goes to Monte Carlo," "Million-Dollar Duck," "Mystery in Dracula's
Castle," "The Shaggy Dog," "The Ghost That Came Alive," "Unidentified
Flying Oddball," and stories about the Partridge Family.

Lenona.

[Cori]

Kewl! Always loved the book, which was on my searched-for list for
years, but never knew it was a record, or suspected Vic Crume might be
female!

Cori

On Apr 4, 7:48 pm, lenona...@yahoo.com wrote:
> I assume the owner of the video knows what he's talking about when he
> says that Crume's name was actually Victoria. He simply reads the poem
> aloud for one minute. (I always thought it was pretty eerie too.)

> (Apparently, Scholastic Records recorded parts of the book in 1970!)

> Lenona.