THE GHOST
by: R.H. Barham (1788-1845)
- here stands a City,-- neither large nor small,
- Its air and situation sweet and pretty;
- It matters very little -- if at all --
- Whether its denizens are dull or witty,
- Whether the ladies there are short or tall,
- Brunettes or blondes, only, there stands a city!--
- Perhaps 'tis also requisite to minute
- That there's a Castle and a Cobbler in it.
- A fair Cathedral, too, the story goes,
- And kings and heroes lie entomb'd within her;
- There pious Saints, in marble pomp repose,
- Whose shrines are worn by knees of many a Sinner;
- There, too, full many an Aldermanic nose
- Roll'd its loud diapason after dinner;
- And there stood high the holy sconce of Becket,
- -- Till four assassins came from France to crack it.
- The Castle was a huge and antique mound,
- Proof against all th' artillery of the quiver,
- Ere those abominable guns were found
- To send cold lead through gallant warrior's liver.
- It stands upon a gently rising ground,
- Sloping down gradually to the river,
- Resembling (to compare great things with smaller),
- A well-scooped, mouldy Stilton cheese,-- but taller.
- The Keep, I find, 's been sadly alter'd lately,
- And, 'stead of mail-clad knights, of honour jealous,
- In martial panoply so grand and stately,
- Its walls are fill'd with money-making fellows,
- And stuff'd, unless I'm misinformed greatly,
- With leaden pipes, and coke, and coals, and bellows;
- In short, so great a change has come to pass,
- 'Tis now a manufactory of Gas.
- But to my tale.-- Before this profanation,
- And ere its ancient glories were cut short all,
- A poor hard-working Cobbler took his station
- In a small house, just opposite the portal;
- His birth, his parentage, and education,
- I know but little of -- a strange, odd mortal;
- His aspect, air, and gait, were all ridiculous;
- His name was Mason -- he'd been christen'd Nicholas.
- Nick had a wife possessed of many a charm,
- And of the Lady Huntingdon persuasion;
- But, spite of all her piety, her arm
- She'd sometimes exercise when in a passion;
- And, being of a temper somewhat warm,
- Would now and then seize, upon small occasion,
- A stick, or stool, or anything that round did lie,
- And baste her lord and master most confoundedly.
- No matter!--'tis a thing that's not uncommon,
- 'Tis what we have all heard, and most have read of,--
- I mean, a bruizing, pugilistic woman,
- Such as I own I entertain a dread of,
- -- And so did Nick, whom sometimes there would come on
- A sort of fear his spouse might knock his head off,
- Demolish half his teeth, or drive a rib in,
- She shone so much in 'facers' and in 'fibbing.'
- 'There's time and place for all things,' said a sage,
- (King Solomon, I think,) and this I can say,
- Within a well-roped ring, or on a stage,
- Boxing may be a very pretty Fancy,
- When Messrs. Burke or Bendigo engage;
- --' Tis not so well in Susan, Jane, or Nancy;--
- To get well mill'd by any one's an evil,
- But by a lady --' tis the very Devil.
- And so thought Nicholas, whose only trouble
- (At least his worst) was this his rib's propensity,
- For sometimes from the alehouse he would hobble,
- His senses lost in a sublime immensity
- Of cogitation -- then he couldn't cobble --
- And then his wife would often try the density
- Of his poor skull, and strike with all her might,
- As fast as kitchen wenches strike a light.
- Mason, meek soul, who ever hated strife,
- Of this same striking had the utmost dread,
- He hated it like poison -- or his wife --
- A vast antipathy!-- but so he said --
- And very often for a quiet life
- On these occasions he'd sneak up to bed,
- Grope darkling in, and, soon as at the door
- He heard his lady -- he'd pretend to snore.
- One night, then, ever partial to society,
- Nick, with a friend (another jovial fellow),
- Went to a Club -- I should have said Society --
- At the 'City Arms,' once called the Porto Bello;
- A Spouting party, which, though some decry it, I
- Consider no bad lounge when one is mellow;
- There they discuss the tax on salt, and leather,
- And change of ministers, and change of weather.
- In short, it was a kind of British Forum,
- Like John Gale Jones's, erst in Piccadilly,
- Only they managed things with more decorum,
- And the Orations were not quite so silly;
- Far different questions, too, would come before 'em,
- Not always Politics, which, will ye nill ye,
- Their London prototypes were always willing,
- To give one quantum suff. of -- for a shilling.
- It more resembled one of later date,
- And tenfold talent, as I'm told, in Bow Street,
- Where kindlier natured souls do congregate,
- And, though there are who deem that same a low street,
- Yet, I'm assured, for frolicsome debate
- And genuine humour it's surpaass'd by no street,
- When the 'Chief Baron' enters, and assumes
- To 'rule' o'er mimic 'Thesigers' and 'Broughams.'
- Here they would oft forget their Rulers' faults,
- And waste in ancient lore the midnight taper,
- Inquire if Orpheus first produced the Waltz,
- How Gas-lights differ from the Delphic Vapour,
- Whether Hippocrates gave Glauber's Salts,
- And what the Romans wrote on ere they'd paper;
- This night the subject of their disquisitions
- Was Ghosts, Hobgoblins, Sprites, and Apparitions.
- One learned gentleman, 'a sage grave man,'
- Talk'd of the Ghost in Hamlet, 'sheath'd in steel;'--
- His well-read friend, who next to speak began,
- Said, 'That was Poetry, and nothing real;'
- A third, of more extensive learning, ran
- To Sir George Villiers' Ghost, and Mrs. Veal;
- Of sheeted Spectres spoke with shorten'd breath,
- And thrice he quoted 'Drelincourt on Death.'
- Nick smoked, and smoked, and trembled as he heard
- The point discuss'd, and all they said upon it,
- How, frequently, some murder'd man appear'd,
- To tell his wife and children who had done it;
- Or how a Miser's ghost, with grisly beard,
- And pale lean visage, in an old Scotch bonnet,
- Wander'd about, to watch his buried money!
- When all at once Nick heard the clock strike one,-- he
- Sprang from his seat, not doubting but a lecture
- Impended from his fond and faithful she;
- Nor could he well to pardon him expect her,
- For he had promised to 'be home to tea;'
- But having luckily the key o' the back door,
- He fondly hoped that, unperceived, he
- Might creep up stairs again, pretend to doze,
- And hoax his spouse with music from his nose.
- Vain, fruitless hope!-- The weary sentinel
- At eve may overlook the crouching foe,
- Till, ere his hand can sound the alarum-bell,
- He sinks beneath the unexpected blow;
- Before the whiskers of Grimalkin fell,
- When slumb'ring on her post, the mouse may go;--
- But woman, wakeful woman, 's never weary,
- -- Above all, when she waits to thump her deary.
- Soon Mrs. Mason heard the well known tread,
- She heard the key slow creaking in the door,
- Spied, through the gloom obscure, towards the bed
- Nick creeping soft, as oft he had crept before;
- When bang, she threw a something at his head,
- And Nick at once lay prostrate on the floor;
- While she exclaim'd, with her indignant face on,--
- 'How dare you use your wife so, Mr. Mason?'
- Spare we to tell how fiercely she debated,
- Especially the length of her oration,--
- Spare we to tell how Nick expostulated,
- Roused by the bump into a good set passion,
- So great, that more than once he execrated,
- Ere he crawl'd into bed in his usual fashion;
- The Muses hate brawls; suffice it then to say,
- He duck'd below the clothes -- and there he lay!
- 'Twas now the very witching time of night,
- When churchyards groan, and graves give up their dead,
- And many a mischievous enfranchised Sprite
- Had long since burst his bonds of stone or lead,
- And hurried off, with schoolboy-like delight,
- To play his pranks near some poor wretch's bed,
- Sleeping perhaps serenely as a porpoise,
- Nor dreaming of this fiendish Habeas Corpus.
- Not so our Nicholas, his meditations
- Still to the same tremendous theme recurr'd,
- The same dread subject of the dark narrations,
- Which, back'd with such authority, he'd heard;
- Lost in his own horrific contemplations,
- He ponder'd o'er each well-remember'd word;
- When at the bed's foot, close beside the post,
- He verily believed he saw -- a Ghost!
- Plain, and more plain, the unsubstantial Sprite
- To his astonish'd gaze each moment grew;
- Ghastly and gaunt, it rear'd its shadowy height,
- Of more than mortal seeming to the view,
- And round its long, thin, bony fingers drew
- A tatter'd winding-sheet, of course all white;
- The moon that moment peeping through a cloud,
- Nick very plainly saw it through the shroud!
- And now those matted locks, which never yet
- Had yielded to the comb's unkind divorce,
- Their long-contracted amity forget,
- And spring asunder with elastic force;
- Nay, e'en the very cap, of texture coarse,
- Whose ruby cincture crown'd that brow of jet,
- Uprose in agony -- the Gorgon's head
- Was but a type of Nick's up-squatting in the bed.
- From every pore distill'd a clammy dew,
- Quaked every limb,-- the candle, too, no doubt,
- En règle, would have burnt extremely blue,
- But Nick unluckily had put it out;
- And he, though naturally bold and stout,
- In short, was in a most tremendous stew;--
- The room was filled with a sulphureous smell,
- But where that came from Mason could not tell.
- All motionless the Spectre stood, and now
- Its rev'rend form more clearly shone confest;
- From the pale cheek a beard of purest snow
- Descended o'er its venerable breast;
- The thin grey hairs, that crown'd its furrow'd brow,
- Told of years long gone by.-- An awful guest
- It stood, and with an action of command,
- Beckon'd the Cobbler with its wan right hand.
- 'Whence, and what art thou, Execrable Shape?'
- Nick might have cried, could he have found a tongue,
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