then gamboge to swallow.
But still my fever would not turn
To scarlet or to yellow!

"With madder and with turmeric,
He made his next attack;
But neither he nor all his drugs
Could stop my dying black.
At last I got so sick of life,
And sick of being dosed,
One Monday morning I gave up
My physic and the ghost!

"Oh, Phoebe dear, what pain it was
To sever every tie!
You know black beetles feel as much
As giants when they die.
And if there is a bridal bed,
Or bride of little worth,
It's lying in a bed of mould,
Along with Mother Earth.

"Alas! Some happy, happy day,
In church I hoped to stand,
And like a muff of sable skin
Receive your lily hand.
But sternly with that piebald match,
My fate untimely clashes;
For now, like Pompey-double-i,
I'm sleeping in my ashes!

"And now farewell! a last farewell!
I'm wanted down below,
And have but time enough to add
One word before I go--
In mourning crepe and bombazine
Ne'er spend your precious pelf;
Don't go in black for me--for I
Can do it for myself.

"Henceforth within my grave I rest,
But Death, who there inherits,
Allowed my spirit leave to come,
You seemed so near your spirits:
But do not sigh, and do not cry,
By grief too much engrossed,
Nor for a ghost of color turn
The color of a ghost!

"Again, farewell, my Phoebe dear!
Once more a last adieu!
For I must make myself as scarce
As swans of sable hue."
From black to gray, from gray to nought
The shape began to fade--
And like an egg, though not so white,
The ghost was newly laid!"

THE GHOST: THOMAS HOOD

_A Very Serious Ballad_

In Middle Row, some years ago,
There lived one Mr. Brown;
And many folks considered him
The stoutest man in town.

But Brown and stout will both wear out--
One Friday he died hard,
And left a widow'd wife to mourn
At twenty pence a yard.

Now widow B. in two short months
Thought mourning quite a tax;
And wished, like Mr. Wilberforce,
To _manumit_ her blacks.

With Mr. Street she soon was sweet;
The thing came thus about:
She asked him in at home, and then
At church, he asked her out!

Assurance such as this the man
In ashes could not stand;
So like a Phoenix he rose up
Against the Hand in Hand!

One dreary night the angry sprite
Appeared before her view;
It came a little after one,
But she was after