Come recently from Hades, 560
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, 570
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 580
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 590
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) 600
  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. 610
Meanwhile, the spirits made replies
To all the reverent whats and whys,
Resolving doubts of every size,
And giving seekers grave and wise,
Who came to know their destinies,
  A rap-turous reception;
When unbelievers void of grace
Came to investigate the place,
(Creatures of Sadducistic race,
With grovelling intellects and base,) 620
They could not find the slightest trace
  To indicate deception;
Indeed, it is declared by some
That spirits (of this sort) are glum,
Almost, or wholly, deaf and dumb,
And (out of self-respect) quite mum
To skeptic natures cold and numb
Who of this kind of Kingdom Come
  Have not a just conception: 
True, there were people who demurred 630
That, though the raps no doubt were heard
Both under them and o’er them,
Yet, somehow, when a search they made,
They found Miss Jenny sore afraid,
Or Jenny’s lover, Doctor Slade,
Equally awestruck and dismayed,
Or Deborah, the chambermaid,
Whose terrors not to be gainsaid