Moriah’s Samhain

Moriah’s Samhain is a community poem about harvest, seasonal death, rest, and the life that waits beyond winter. Its voice is simple and devotional. The Goddess receives thanks for fertility and growth; the God receives thanks for death’s cleansing passage. Neither power stands alone.

Special thanks remain due to PaganGate member Moriah for this contribution. The poem is preserved below as it was offered, with only line breaks arranged for clear reading.

Moriah’s Samhain Poem

Days of harvest again is here,
Our second round of Goddess cheer.
Samhain Will close the days of she,
And usher in the days of he.
Death does loom for green and lush,
Soon cooler days to bring cheeks ablush.
Worry ye not of the passing of life,
For death is not furrowed with malice and strife.
It is a time to rest,
and cleanse the soul,
For new life Will come,
As in days of ole.
Thank the Goddess for life and fertility,
And thank the God,
For deaths cleansing ability.
Blessed be.

The Harvest Current Within the Poem

The opening lines place Samhain inside the harvest cycle. The bright season does not simply disappear; it closes after giving what it could. Green abundance passes into cold, and the flushed cheeks of summer become the flushed cheeks of winter air.

The poem’s central teaching is not to fear the passing of visible life. Rest cleanses. The soil becomes quiet. What looks empty is preparing a form not yet seen. This is the heart of the Samhain Sabbat: death and renewal held within the same turning Wheel.

Its brief form makes it especially useful at a crowded gathering. The poem can mark the moment when conversation ends and ceremony begins. Read it at the doorway, beside the first candle, or immediately before the Feast of Memory. Its final blessing becomes the key that turns an ordinary room toward sacred attention.

Use the Poem as an Altar Reading

Read the poem after lighting the first Samhain candle. Place an apple, a dark leaf, and a bowl of earth on the altar. The apple represents harvest; the leaf, release; the earth, the hidden country where the future waits.

1. Light one orange or white candle in a stable holder.
2. Hold the apple and read the opening eight lines.
3. Set down the apple. Take the leaf and read through “cleanse the soul.”
4. Lay the leaf upon the earth and finish the poem.
5. Remain silent for sixteen breaths, one for each line of the original verse.

When the reading is complete, say:

Goddess of fruit and God of bone,
Keep the seed in the dark unknown.
What has completed, let it be still;
What must return, wake when it will.
Harvest behind me, winter before—
I bless the hinge and close the door.

Use Moriah’s Samhain in a Group

In a family or coven, divide the poem between two voices. One reader speaks the lines of harvest, fertility, and the Goddess. The second speaks the lines of cold, death, cleansing, and the God. Everyone joins on “Blessed be.” The alternating voices reveal that the poem is not a contest between divine powers, but a conversation across the threshold.

You may include the reading within the Samhain Celebration Ritual, just before the apple is cut to show its star. It also works as the opening prayer for a quiet meal or ancestor vigil.

Write a Companion Verse

After reading, write four lines of your own. Name one thing harvested, one thing ending, one thing resting, and one thing you trust to return. Do not imitate the poem’s words exactly. Answer it from the season you are actually living.

Fold your verse beneath the bowl of earth overnight. In the morning, place it in your Book of Shadows. Eat the apple or share it. Compost the leaf with the soil.

A community poem becomes ritual when another voice answers.

The final line is not an ending.