1 Considers if it be harder, shutting eyes Doubt succumbs! Victory! All your circle's yours again! David's performance rounds, each chink gets patched, All's fit to set a-rolling round the world, Lies seven-feet thick about his first half-inch. Poor David's pledged to! You've employed no tool You hold, if there's one half or a hundredth part Of arms between us, your first taste o' the foil From Sludge who could not fence, sir! Sludge, your boy! I lied, sir,-there! I got up from my gorge On offal in the gutter, and preferred Your canvas-backs: I took their carver's size, Tickled him on the cockles of his heart With a raven feather, and next week found myself And creep out from its hole, inch after inch, Tucked up, just as they left me,-than came raps! "While a light whisked" . . . "Shaped somewhat like a star? Well, like some sort of stars, ma'am."-"So we thought! "And any voice? Not yet? Try hard, next time, "If you can't hear a voice; we think you may: "At least, the Pennsylvanian 'mediums' did.' Oh, next time comes the voice! "Just as we hoped!" Are not the hopers proud now, pleased, profuse O' the natural acknowledgment? Of course! So, off we push, illy-oh-yo, trim the boat, We're midway to the Horseshoe: stop, who can, With the turf to tread; see if you find or no Much more a youth whose fancies sprout as rank Sirrah, you spirit, come, go, fetch and carry, "Read, write, rap, rub-a-dub, and hang yourself!" Foam, fling myself flat, rend my clothes to shreds, Will lay down spiritual laws, read wrong things right "We understand; the trick's but natural: "Such spirits' individuality "Is hard to put in evidence: they incline "To gibe and jeer, these undeveloped sorts. "You see, their world's much like a jail broke loose, 'While this of ours remains shut, bolted, barred, 'With a single window to it. Sludge, our friend, "Serves as this window, whether thin or thick, "Or stained or stainless; he's the medium-pane "Through which, to see us and be seen, they peep: 'They crowd each other, hustle for a chance, "Tread on their neighbour's kibes, play tricks enough! "Does Bacon, tired of waiting, swerve aside? "Up in his place jumps Barnum-'I'm your man, “'I'll answer for you Bacon!' Try once more!" Or else it's-"What's a 'medium'? He's a means, "Good, bad, indifferent, still the only means 'Spirits can speak by; he may misconceive, Stutter and stammer,-he's their Sludge and drudge, "Take him or leave him; they must hold their peace, "Or else, put up with having knowledge strained "To half-expression through his ignorance. Suppose, the spirit Beethoven wants to shed "New music he's brimful of; why, he turns "The handle of this organ, grinds with Sludge, And what he poured in at the mouth o' the mill As a Thirty-third Sonata, (fancy now!) "Comes from the hopper as bran-new Sludge, nought else, "The Shakers' Hymn in G, with a natural F, "Or the 'Stars and Stripes' set to consecutive fourths.' "No, sometimes "They doubt and say as much!" Ay, doubt they do! And what's the consequence? "Of course they doubt" (You triumph) "that explains the hitch at once! "Doubt posed our 'medium,' puddled his pure mind; "He gave them back their rubbish: pitch chaff in, "Could flour come out o' the honest mill?" So, prompt Applaud the faithful: cases flock in point, How, when a mocker willed a 'medium' once "Should name a spirit James whose name was George, "James' cried the 'medium,'-'twas the test of truth!" In short, a hit proves much, a miss proves more. Does this convince? The better: does it fail? Time for the double-shotted broadside, thenThe grand means, last resource. Look black and big! "You style us idiots, therefore-why stop short? "Accomplices in rascality: this we hear "In our own house, from our invited guest "Found brave enough to outrage a poor boy Exposed by our good faith! Have you been heard? 'Now, then, hear us; one man's not quite worth twelve. 'You see a cheat? Here's some twelve see an ass: "Excuse me if I calculate : good day!" Out slinks the sceptic, all the laughs explode. Or he don't. There's something in real truth (explain who can!) One casts a wistful eye at, like the horse Who mopes beneath stuffed hay-racks and won't munch Because he spies a corn-bag: hang that truth, That, dandled soft by nurse, aunt, grandmother, Fain would be down with them i' the thick o' the filth, And calling granny the grey old cat she is. I've felt a spite, I say, at you, at them, Huggings and humbug-gnashed my teeth to mark |