'Halloween 1914' by Winifred M Letts and Performed by Aileen Lambert

"Why do you wait at your door woman?" - The Returning Soul.
Here's a poem written over a century ago by Winifred M Letts called 'Halloween 1914' and it's about a woman waiting at her door for her dead lover to return. Aileen put an air to the poem recently and this was performed at the launch of a new biography on the life and works of poet Winifred M. Letts by Bairbre O'Hogan in The Old Couthouse in Rathcoole, Co. Dublin on the 20th of October 2024..
Great imagery here and Winifred describes the candle in the window and how the hearth was swept for the returning souls - something that my own grandmother remembered from her youth in the 1920s.
Text: Michael Fortune
Words: Winifred M Letts
Air: Aileen Lambert