One testified to ice and snow,
One that the mercury was low,
One that his progress was quite slow,
One that he much desired to go,
One that the cook had frozen his toe, 720
(Dissented from by Dandolo,
Wordsworth, Cynaegirus, Boileau,
La Hontan, and Sir Thomas Roe,)
One saw twelve white bears in a row,
One saw eleven and a crow,
With other things we could not know
(Of great statistic value, though,)
  By our mere mortal vision.

Sometimes the spirits made mistakes,
And seemed to play at ducks and drakes. 730
With bold inquiry’s heaviest stakes
  In science or in mystery: 
They knew so little (and that wrong)
Yet rapped it out so bold and strong,
One would have said the unnumbered throng
  Had been Professors of History;
What made it odder was, that those
Who, you would naturally suppose,
Could solve a question, if they chose,
As easily as count their toes, 740
  Were just the ones that blundered;
One day, Ulysses happening down,
A reader of Sir Thomas Browne
  And who (with him) had wondered
What song it was the Sirens sang,
Asked the shrewd Ithacan—­bang! bang!
With this response the chamber rang,
  ‘I guess it was Old Hundred.’ 
And Franklin, being asked to name
The reason why the lightning came, 750
  Replied, ‘Because it thundered.’

On one sole point the ghosts agreed
One fearful point, than which, indeed,
  Nothing could seem absurder;
Poor Colonel Jones they all abused
And finally downright accused
  The poor old man of murder;
’Twas thus; by dreadful raps was shown
Some spirit’s longing to make known
A bloody fact, which he alone 760
Was privy to, (such ghosts more prone
  In Earth’s affairs to meddle are;)
Who are you? with awe-stricken looks,
All ask:  his airy knuckles he crooks,
And raps, ’I was Eliab Snooks,
  That used to be a pedler;
Some on ye still are on my books!’
Whereat, to inconspicuous nooks,
(More fearing this than common spooks)
  Shrank each indebted meddler;
Further the vengeful ghost declared 771
That while his earthly life was spared,
About the country he had fared,
  A duly licensed follower
Of that much-wandering trade that wins
Slow profit from the sale of tins
  And various kinds of hollow-ware;
That Colonel Jones enticed him in,
Pretending that he wanted tin,
There slew him with a rolling-pin,
Hid him in a potato-bin, 781
  And (the same night) him ferried
Across Great Pond to t’other shore,
And there, on land of Widow Moore,
Just where you turn to Larkin’s store,
  Under a rock him buried;
Some friends (who happened to be by)
He called upon to testify
That what he said was not a lie,
  And that he did not stir this 790
Foul matter, out of any spite