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half light, half gloom, Throng through the spirit's skylight; The flames by fits curled round the bars, Or up the chimney crinkled, While embers dropped like falling stars, And in the ashes tinkled. I sat, and mused; the fire burned low, And, o'er my senses stealing, 10 Crept something of the ruddy glow That bloomed on wall and ceiling; My pictures (they are very few, The heads of ancient wise men) Smoothed down their knotted fronts, and grew As rosy as excisemen. My antique high-backed Spanish chair Felt thrills through wood and leather, That had been strangers since whilere, Mid Andaluslan heather, 20 The oak that built its sturdy frame His happy arms stretched over The ox whose fortunate hide became The bottom's polished cover. It came out in that famous bark, That brought our sires intrepid, Capacious as another ark For furniture decrepit; For, as that saved of bird and beast A pair for propagation, 30 So has the seed of these increased And furnished half the nation. Kings sit, they say, in slippery seats; But those slant precipices Of ice the northern voyager meets Less slippery are than this is; To cling therein would pass the wit Of royal man or woman, And whatsoe'er can stay in it Is more or less than human. 40 I offer to all bores this perch, Dear well-intentioned people With heads as void as week-day church, Tongues longer than the steeple; To folks with missions, whose gaunt eyes See golden ages rising,-- Salt of the earth! in what queer Guys Thou'rt fond of crystallizing! My wonder, then, was not unmixed With merciful suggestion, 50 When, as my roving eyes grew fixed Upon the chair in question, I saw its trembling arms enclose A figure grim and rusty, Whose doublet plain and plainer hose Were something worn and dusty. Now even such men as Nature forms Merely to fill the street with, Once turned to ghosts by hungry worms, 59 Are serious things to meet with; Your penitent spirits are no jokes, And, though I'm not averse to A quiet shade, even they are folks One cares not to speak first to. Who knows, thought I, but he has come, By Charon kindly ferried, To tell me of a mighty sum Behind my wainscot buried? There is a buccaneerish air About that garb outlandish-- 70 Just then the ghost drew up his chair And said
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