Weird Tales/Volume 30/Issue 4/To a Skull on My Bookshelf

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To a Skull on My Bookshelf  (1937)  by Elizabeth Virginia Raplee

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From Weird Tales, Volume 30, Issue 4

To a Skull

on My Bookshelf

By ELIZABETH VIRGINIA RAPLEE

O bony relic of forgotten days, Which, from my bookshelf, dominates the room, Your empty sockets, with sardonic gaze, Follow me weirdly in the deepening gloom! I often think, if sudden speech returned, You might reveal that secret, grisly jest You're grinning at—or tell me what you've learned Of that dark realm to which we're all addressed. By what rude hands were you exhumed, and why Wrenched from your body in its earthy bed? Who knows but such indignity will I Receive at other hands, when I am dead, And, strangely resurrected, may adorn The wall or desk of one as yet unborn!

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was legally published within the United States (or the United Nations Headquarters in New York subject to Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement) before 1964, and copyright was not renewed. For Class A renewals records (books only) published between 1923 and 1963, check the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Rutgers copyright renewal records. For other renewal records of publications between 1922 - 1950 see the Pennsylvania copyright records scans. For all records since 1978, search the U.S. Copyright Office records. Works published in 1937 would have had to renew their copyright in either 1964 or 1965, i.e. at least 27 years after it was first published / registered but not later than 31 December(31 December) in the 28th year. As it was not renewed, it entered the public domain on 1 January 1966(1 January 1966).