And make your workmen drive on ; Meadow there is, and upland too, And I should like a water-view, D' you think you could contrive one? (Perhaps the pump and trough would do,

If painted a judicious blue ?)

The woodland I 've attended to "; [He meant three pines stuck up askew,

Two dead ones and a live one.]

"A pocket-full of rocks 't would take To build a house of freestone,

But then it is not hard to make

What nowadays is the stone;
The cunning painter in a trice
Your house's outside petrifies,
And people think it very gneiss
Without inquiring deeper;

My money never shall be thrown
Away on such a deal of stone,
When stone of deal is cheaper.'

And so the greenest of antiques

Was reared for Knott to dwell in :
The architect worked hard for weeks
In venting all his private peaks
Upon the roof, whose crop of leaks
Had satisfied Fluellen;
Whatever anybody had

Out of the common, good or bad,

Knott had it all worked well in; A donjon-keep, where clothes might

dry,

A porter's lodge that was a sty,
A campanile slim and high,

Too small to hang a bell in ;

All up and down and here and there, With Lord-knows-whats of round and

square

Stuck on at random everywhere,
It was a house to make one stare,

All corners and all gables;
Like dogs let loose upon a bear,
Ten emulous styles staboyed with care,
The whole among them seemed to tear,
And all the oddities to spare

Were set upon the stables.

Knott was delighted with a pile
Approved by fashion's leaders:
(Only he made the builder smile,
By asking every little while,
Why that was called the Twodoor style,
Which certainly had three doors?)
Yet better for this luckless man
If he had put a downright ban

Upon the thing in limine; For, though to quit affairs his plan, Ere many days, poor Knott began Perforce accepting draughts, that ran All ways except up chimney; The house, though painted stone to mock,

With nice white lines round every block,

Some trepidation stood in,
When tempests (with petrific shock,
So to speak,) made it really rock,

Though not a whit less wooden;
And painted stone, howe'er well done,
Will not take in the prodigal sun
Whose beams are never quite at one
With our terrestrial lumber;
So the wood shrank around the knots,
And gaped in disconcerting spots,
And there were lots of dots and rots
And crannies without number,
Wherethrough, as you may well pre-

Cried Knott, ". 'this goes beyond all bounds;

I do not deal in tongues and sounds,
Nor have I let my house and grounds
To a family of Noyeses!"

But, though Knott's house was full of airs,

He had but one, a daughter; And, as he owned much stocks and shares,

Many who wished to render theirs
Such vain, unsatisfying cares,
And needed wives to sew their tears,

In matrimony sought her;
They vowed her gold they wanted not,
Their faith would never falter,
They longed to tie this single Knott
In the Hymeneal halter;
So daily at the door they rang,

Cards for the belle delivering, Or in the choir at her they sang, Achieving such a rapturous twang As set her nerves ashivering.

Now Knott had quite made up his mind
That Colonel Jones should have her;
No beauty he, but oft we find
Sweet kernels 'neath a roughish rind,
So hoped his Jenny'd be resigned

And make no more palaver;
Glanced at the fact that love was blind,
That girls were ratherish inclined

To pet their little crosses,
Then nosologically defined
The rate at which the system pined
In those unfortunates who dined
Upon that metaphoric kind

Of dish their own proboscis.

But she, with many tears and moans,
Besought him not to mock her,
Said 't was too much for flesh and bones
To marry mortgages and loans,
That fathers' hearts were stocks and

stones,

And that she'd go, when Mrs. Jones,

To Davy Jones's locker;
Then gave her head a little toss
That said as plain as ever was,
If men are always at a loss

Mere womankind to bridle -
To try the thing on woman cross
Were fifty times as idle ;
For she a strict resolve had made

And registered in private,
That either she would die a maid,
Or else be Mrs. Doctor Slade,

If woman could contrive it;
And, though the wedding-day was set,
Jenny was more so, rather,
Declaring, in a pretty pet,

That, howsoe'er they spread their net, She would out-Jennyral them yet,

The colonel and her father.

Just at this time the Public's eyes

Were keenly on the watch, a stir
Beginning slowly to arise
About those questions and replies,
Those raps that unwrapped mysteries
So rapidly at Rochester,

And Knott, already nervous grown
By lying much awake alone,
And listening, sometimes to a moan,

And sometimes to a clatter,
Whene'er the wind at night would rouse
The gingerbread-work on his house,
Or when some hasty-tempered mouse,
Behind the plastering, made a towse
About a family matter,
Began to wonder if his wife,

A paralytic half her life,

Which made it more surprising, Might not to rule him from her urn, Have taken a peripatetic turn

For want of exorcising.

This thought, once nestled in his head, Erelong contagious grew, and spread Infecting all his mind with dread, Until at last he lay in bed

And heard his wife, with well-known tread,

Entering the kitchen through the shed,

(Or was 't his fancy, mocking?) Opening the pantry, cutting bread, And then (she'd been some ten years dead)

Closets and drawers unlocking; Or, in his room (his breath grew thick) He heard the long-familiar click Of slender needles flying quick,

As if she knit a stocking;

For whom?-he prayed that years might flit

With pains rheumatic shooting, Before those ghostly things she knit Upon his unfleshed sole might fit, He did not fancy it a bit,

To stand upon that footing; At other times, his frightened hairs Above the bedclothes trusting, He heard her, full of household cares, (No dream entrapped in supper's snares, The foal of horrible nightmares, But broad awake, as he declares,) Go bustling up and down the stairs, Or setting back last evening's chairs, Or with the poker thrusting raked-up sea-coal's

The

crust

hardened

And what! impossible! it must! He knew she had returned to dust, And yet could scarce his senses trust, Hearing her as she poked and fussed About the parlor, dusting!

Night after night he strove to sleep
And take his ease in spite of it;
But still his flesh would chill and creep,
And, though two night-lamps he might
keep,

He could not so make light of it.
At last, quite desperate, he goes
And tells his neighbors all his woes,
Which did but their amount enhance;
They made such mockery of his fears
That soon his days were of all jeers,

His nights of the rueful countenance; "I thought most folks," one neighbor said,

"Gave up the ghost when they were dead?"

Another gravely shook his head,
Adding, "From all we hear, it's
Quite plain poor Knott is going mad
For how can he at once be sad

And think he's full of spirits?"
A third declared he knew a knife
Would cut this Knott much quicker,
"The surest way to end all strife,
And lay the spirit of a wife,

Is just to take and lick her!" A temperance man caught up the word, Ah, yes," he groaned, "I've always heard

66

Our poor friend somewhat slanted Tow'rd taking liquor overmuch; I fear these spirits may be Dutch, (A sort of gins, or something such,)

With which his house is haunted; I see the thing as clear as light, If Knott would give up getting tight, Naught farther would be wanted So all his neighbors stood aloof And, that the spirits 'neath his roof Were not entirely up to proof, Unanimously granted.

:

Knott knew that cocks and sprites were foes,

And so bought up, Heaven only knows
How many, for he wanted crows
To give ghosts caws, as I suppose,

To think that day was breaking;
Moreover what he called his park,
He turned into a kind of ark
For dogs, because a little bark
Is a good tonic in the dark,

If one is given to waking;
But things went on from bad to worse,
His curs were nothing but a curse,

And, what was still more shocking, Foul ghosts of living fowl made scoff And would not think of going off

In spite of all his cocking.
Shanghais, Bucks-counties, Dominiques
Malays (that did n't lay for weeks,)

Polanders, Bantams, Dorkings,
(Waiving the cost, no trifling ill,
Since each brought in his little bill,)
By day or night were never still,
But every thought of rest would kill

With cacklings and with quorkings; Henry the Eighth of wives got free

By a way he had of axing ; But poor Knott's Tudor henery Was not so fortunate, and he

Still found his trouble waxing ; As for the dogs, the rows they made, And how they howled, snarled, barked and bayed,

Beyond all human knowledge is ;
All night, as wide awake as gnats,
The terriers rumpused after rats,
Or, just for practice, taught their brats
To worry cast-off shoes and hats,
The bull-dogs settled private spats,
All chased imaginary cats,

Or raved behind the fence's slats
At real ones, or, from their mats,

With friends, miles off, held pleasant

Still, spite of medical advice,
The ghosts came thicker, and a spice
Of mischief grew apparent ;
Nor did they only come at night,
But seemed to fancy broad daylight,
Till Knott, in horror and affright,

His unoffending hair rent;
Whene'er with handkerchief on lap,
He made his elbow-chair a trap,
To catch an after-dinner nap,
The spirits, always on the tap,
Would make a sudden rap, rap, rap,
The half-spun cord of sleep to snap,
(And what is life without its nap
But threadbareness and mere mishap ?)
As 't were with a percussion cap

The trouble's climax capping;
It seemed a party dried and grim
Of mummies had come to visit him,
Each getting off from every limb
Its multitudinous wrapping;
Scratchings sometimes the walls ran
round,

The merest penny-weights of sound;
Sometimes 't was only by the pound
They carried on their dealing,
A thumping 'neath the parlor floor,
Thump-bump-thump-bumping o'er and

o'er,

As if the vegetables in store

OF SPIRITS.

AT first the ghosts were somewhat shy,

Coming when none but Knott was nigh, And people said 't was all their eye, (Or rather his) a flam, the sly

Digestion's machination : Some recommended a wet sheet, Some a nice broth of pounded peat, Some a cold flat-iron to the feet, Some a decoction of lamb's-bleat, Some a southwesterly grain of wheat; Meat was by some pronounced unmeet, Others thought fish most indiscreet, And that 't was worse than all to eat Of vegetables, sour or sweet, (Except, perhaps, the skin of beet,) In such a concatenation : One quack his button gently plucks And murmurs, "Biliary ducks!"

Says Knott, "I never ate one"; But all, though brimming full of wrath, Homœo, Allo, Hydropath, Concurred in this that t' other's path

To death's door was the straight one.

Were all together peeling;

You would have thought the thing was done

By the spirit of some son of a gun,

And that a forty-two-pounder, Or that the ghost which made such sounds

Could be none other than John Pounds, Of Ragged Schools the founder. Through three gradations of affright, The awful noises reached their height;

At first they knocked nocturnally, Then, for some reason, changing quite, (As mourners, after six months' flight, Turn suddenly from dark to light,)

Began to knock diurnally, And last, combining all their stocks, (Scotland was ne'er so full of Knox,) Into one Chaos (father of Nox,) Nocte pluit- they showered knocks, And knocked, knocked, knocked, eternally;

Ever upon the go, like buovs,
(Wooden sea-urchins,) all Knott's joys,
They turned to troubles and a noise
That preyed on him internally.

Soon they grew wider in their scope;
Whenever Knott a door would ope,
It would ope not, or else elope
And fly back (curbless as a trope
Once started down a stanza's slope
By a bard that gave it too much rope-)
Like a clap of thunder slamming;
And, when kind Jenny brought his hat,
(She always, when he walked, did that,)
Just as upon his head it sat,
Submitting to his settling pat,
Some unseen hand would jam it flat,
Or give it such a furious bat

That eyes and nose went cramming
Up out of sight, and consequently,
As when in life it paddled free,

His beaver caused much danning; If these things seem o'er-strained to be,

Read the account of Doctor Dee,
"Tis in our college library;
Read Wesley's circumstantial plea,
And Mrs. Crowe, more like a bee,
Sucking the nightshade's honeyed fee,
And Stilling's Pneumatology;
Consult Scot, Glanvil, grave Wie-
rus, and both Mathers; further see,
Webster, Casaubon, James First's trea-
tise, a right royal Q. E. D.
Writ with the moon in perigee,
Bodin de la Demonomanie
(Accent that last line gingerly)
All full of learning as the sea
Of fishes, and all disagree,
Save in Sathanas apage!
Or, what will surely put a flea
In unbelieving ears-with glee,
Out of a paper (sent to me
By some friend who forgot to P...
A...Y...I use cryptography
Lest I his vengeful pen should dree -
His P...O...S...T...A...G...E...)

Things to the same effect I cut,
About the tantrums of a ghost,
Not more than three weeks since,
most,

Near Stratford, in Connecticut.

The tables took to spinning, too,
Perpetual yarns, and arm-chairs grew
To prophets and apostles;
One footstool vowed that only he
Of law and gospel held the key,
That teachers of whate'er degree
To whom opinion bows the knee
Wern't fit to teach Truth's a b c.
And were (the whole lot) to a T
Mere fogies all and fossils;
A teapoy, late the property

Of Knox's Aunt Keziah,
(Whom Jenny most irreverently
Had nicknamed her aunt-tipathy)
With tips emphatic claimed to be
The prophet Jeremiah;
The tins upon the kitchen-wall,
Turned tintinnabulators all,
And things that used to come at call
For simple household services
Began to hop and whirl and prance,
Fit to put out of countenance
The Commis and Grisettes of France
Or Turkey's dancing Dervises.

Knott's Upas daily spread its roots,
Sent up on all sides livelier shoots,
And bore more pestilential fruits;
The ghosts behaved like downright
brutes,

They snipped holes in his Sunday suits,
Practised all night on octave flutes,
Put peas (not peace) into his boots,
Whereof grew corns in season,

And paid the house a visit ;
Horses were to his pine-trees tied,
Mourners in every corner sighed,
Widows brought children there that
cried,

Swarms of lean Seekers, eager-eyed,
(People Knott never could abide,)
Into each hole and cranny pried
With strings of questions cut and dried