That House I'd sought with anxious thought,
'Twas old, 'twas dark as sin,
And deeds of bale, so ran the tale,
Had oft been done therein.
Full many a child its mother wild,
Men said, had strangled there,
Full many a sire, in heedless ire,
Had slain his daughter fair!
'Twas rarely let: I can't forget
A recent tenant's dread,
This widow lone had heard a moan
Proceeding from her bed.
The tenants next were chiefly vexed
By spectres grim and grey.
A Headless Ghost annoyed them most,
And so they did not stay.
The next in turn saw corpse lights burn,
And also a Banshie,
A spectral Hand they could not stand,
And left the House to me.
Then came my friends for divers ends,
Some curious, some afraid;
No direr pest disturbed their rest
Than a neat chambermaid.
The grisly halls were gay with balls,
One melancholy nook
Where ghosts GALORE were seen before
Now yielded ne'er a spook.
When man and maid, all unafraid,
'Sat out' upon the stairs,
No spectre dread, with feet of lead,
Came past them unawares.
I know not why, but alway I
Have found that it is so,
That when the glum Researchers come
The brutes of bogeys--go!
TO THE GENTLE READER
'A French writer (whom I love well) speaks of three kinds of
companions,--men, women, and books.
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