PART I.

SHOWING HOW HE BUILT HIS HOUSE
AND HIS WIFE MOVED INTO IT.

My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott,
From business snug withdrawn,
Was much contented with a lot
That would contain a Tudor cot

"Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot, And twelve feet more of lawn.

He had laid business on the shelf
To give his taste expansion,
And, since no man, retired with pelf,
The building mania can shun,
Knott, being middle-aged himself,
Resolved to build (unhappy elf!)
A mediæval mansion.

He called an architect in counsel;

"I want," said he, "a- you know what,

(You are a builder, I am Knott,) A thing complete from chimney-pot Down to the very grounsel;

Here's a half-acre of good land;

Just have it nicely mapped and planned

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

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

- 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!

"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 madFor 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

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
chats,

Or, like some folks in white cravats,
Contemptuous of sharps and flats,

Sat up and sang dogsologies.
Meanwhile the cats set up a squall,
And, safe upon the garden-wall,

All night kept cat-a-walling, As if the feline race were all, In one wild cataleptic sprawl, Into love's tortures falling.

PART II.

SHOWING WHAT IS MEANT BY A FLOW 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, 66
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.
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 (Quiet and orderly before)

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 buoys, (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 damning;

If these things seem o'er-strained to

be,

Read the account of Doctor Dee,
"T is 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, at most,

Near Stratford, in Connecticut.
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 (not peace) into his boots,
peas
Whereof grew corns in season,
They scotched his sheets, and, what was

worse,

Stuck his silk nightcap full of burrs,
Till he, in language plain and terse,
(But much unlike a Bible verse,)

Swore he should lose his reason.
The tables took to spinning, too,
Perpetual yarus, 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.

Of course such doings, far and wide,
With rumors filled the country-side,
And (as it is our nation's pride
To think a Truth not verified
Till with majorities allied)
Parties sprung up, affirmed, denied,
And candidates with questions plied,
Who, like the circus-riders, tried
At once both hobbies to bestride,
And each with his opponent vied

In being inexplicit.
Earnest inquirers multiplied;
Folks, whose tenth cousins lately died,
Wrote letters long, and Knott replied;
All who could either walk or ride
Gathered to wonder or deride,
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

How baldness might be cured or foiled?
How heal diseased potatoes?
Did spirits have the sense of smell?
Where would departed spinsters dwell?
If the late Zenas Smith were well?
If Earth were solid or a shell ?
Were spirits fond of Doctor Fell?
Did the bull toll Cock-Robin's knell ?
What remedy would bugs expel?
If Paine's invention were a sell?
Did spirits by Webster's system spell?
Was it a sin to be a belle ?
Did dancing sentence folks to hell?
If so, then where most torture fell

On little toes or great toes?
If life's true seat were in the brain?'
Did Ensign mean to marry Jane?
By whom, in fact, was Morgan slain ?
Could matter ever suffer pain?
What would take out a cherry-stain?
Who picked the pocket of Seth Crane,
Of Waldo precinct, State of Maine ?
Was Sir John Franklin sought in vain ?
Did primitive Christians ever train?
What was the family-name of Cain ?
Them spoons, were they by Betty ta'en?
Would earth-worm poultice cure

sprain?

Was Socrates so dreadful plain?

What teamster guided Charles's wain? Was Uncle Ethan mad or sane,

And could his will in force remain ?

If not, what counsel to retain ?

a

Did Le Sage steal Gil Blas from Spain?
Was Junius writ by Thomas Paine?
Were ducks discomforted by rain?
How did Britannia rule the main?
Was Jonas coming back again?
Was vital truth upon the wane?
Did ghosts, to scare folks, drag a chain?
Who was our Huldah's chosen swain?
Did none have teeth pulled without
payin',

Ere ether was invented? Whether mankind would not agree, If the universe were tuned in C? What was it ailed Lucindy's knee? Whether folks eat folks in Feejee? Whether his name would end with T? If Saturn's rings were two or three, And what bump in Phrenology They truly represented?

These problems dark, wherein they groped,

Wherewith man's reason vainly coped, Now that the spirit-world was oped, In all humility they hoped

Would be resolved instanter; Each of the miscellaneous rout Brought his, or her, own little doubt, And wished to pump the spirits out, Through his or her own private spout, Into his or her decanter.

ARE

MORE

MOST ARDENT SPIRITS
ORNAMENTAL THAN USEFUL.

MANY a speculating wight

Came by express-trains, day and night, To see if Knott would "sell his right,' Meaning to make the ghosts a sight

What they called a "meenaygerie"; One threatened, if he would not "trade," His run of custom to invade,

(He could not these sharp folks persuade That he was not, in some way, paid,)

And stamp him as a plagiary,
By coming down, at one fell swoop,
With THE ORIGINAL

TROUPE,

KNOCKING

Come recently from Hades,
Who (for a quarter-dollar heard)
Would ne'er rap out a hasty word
Whence any blame might be incurred

From the most fastidious ladies;
The late lamented Jesse Soule
To stir the ghosts up with a pole
And be director of the whole,

Who was engaged the rather
For the rare merits he 'd combine,
Having been in the spirit line,
Which trade he only did resign,
With general applause, to shine,
Awful in mail of cotton fine,

As ghost of Hamlet's father! Another a fair plan reveals

Never yet hit on, which, he feels,

To Knott's religious sense appeals

We'll have your house set up on

wheels,

A speculation pious;

For music, we can shortly find

A barrel-organ that will grind

Psalm-tunes, - an instrument designed
For the New England tour-refined
From secular drosses, and inclined
To an unworldly turn, (combined
With no sectarian bias ;)
Then, travelling by stages slow,
Under the style of Knott & Co.,
I would accompany the show
As moral lecturer, the foe

Of Rationalism; while you could throw
The rappings in, and make them go
Strict Puritan principles, you know,
(How do you make 'em? with your toe?)
And the receipts which thence might flow,
We could divide between us;
Still more attractions to combine,
Beside these services of mine,
I will throw in a very fine
(It would do nicely for a sign)
Original Titian's Venus.'
Another offered handsome fees
If Knott would get Demosthenes
(Nay, his mere knuckles, for more ease)
To rap a few short sentences;
Or if, for want of proper keys,

His Greek might make confusion,
Then just to get a rap from Burke,
To recommend a little work
On Public Elocution.