elope
And fly back (curbless as a trope
Once started down a stanza's slope 380
By a bard that gave it too much rope--)
Like a clap of thunder slamming:
And, when kind Jenny brought his hat,
(She always, when he walked, did that,)
Just as upon his heart it sat,
Submitting to his settling pat,
Some unseen hand would jam it flat,
Or give it such a furious bat
That eyes and nose went cramming
Up out of sight, and consequently, 390
As when in life it paddled free,
His beaver caused much damning;
If these things seem o'erstrained to be,
Read the account of Doctor Dee,
'Tis in our college library:
Read Wesley's circumstantial plea,
And Mrs. Crowe, more like a bee,
Sucking the nightshade's honeyed fee,
And Stilling's Pneumatology;
Consult Scot, Glanvil, grave Wie- 400
rus and both Mathers; further see,
Webster, Casaubon, James First's trea-
tise, a right royal Q.E.D.
Writ with the moon in perigee,
Bodin de la Demonomanie--
(Accent that last line gingerly)
All full of learning as the sea
Of fishes, and all disagree,
Save in _Sathanas apage!_
Or, what will surely put a flea 410
In unbelieving ears--with glee,
Out of a paper (sent to me
By some friend who forgot to P ...
A ... Y ...--I use cryptography
Lest I his vengeful pen should dree--
His P ...O ...S ...T ...A ...G ...E ...)
Things to the same effect I cut,
About the tantrums of a ghost,
Not more than three weeks since, at most,
Near Stratford, in Connecticut. 420
Knott's Upas daily spread its roots,
Sent up on all sides livelier shoots,
And bore more pestilential fruits;
The ghosts behaved like downright brutes,
They snipped holes in his Sunday suits,
Practised all night on octave flutes,
Put peas (not peace) into his boots,
Whereof grew corns in season,
They scotched his sheets, and, what was worse,
Stuck his silk nightcap full of burrs, 430
Till he, in language plain and terse,
(But much unlike a Bible verse,)
Swore he should lose his reason.

The tables took to spinning, too,
Perpetual yarns, and arm-chairs grew
To prophets and apostles;
One footstool vowed that only he
Of law and gospel held the key,
That teachers of whate'er degree
To whom opinion bows the knee 440
Weren't fit to teach Truth's _a b c_,
And were (the whole lot) to a T
Mere fogies all and fossils;
A teapoy, late the property
Of Knox's Aunt Keziah,
(Whom Jenny most irreverently