'Twas now the very witching time of night, When church-yards groan, and graves give up their dead, And many a mischievous, enfranchised Sprite Had long since burst his bonds of stone or lead, And hurried off, with schoolboy-like delight, To play his pranks near some poor wretch's bed, Sleeping, perhaps, serenely as a porpoise, Nor dreaming of this fiendish Habeas Corpus. Not so our Nicholas, his meditations Still to the same tremendous theme recurred, The same dread subject of the dark narrations, Which, back'd with such authority, he'd heard; Lost in his own horrific contemplations, He pondered o'er each well-remembered word; When at the bed's foot, close beside the post, He verily believed he saw--a Ghost! Plain and more plain the unsubstantial Sprite To his astonish'd gaze each moment grew; Ghastly and gaunt, it rear'd its shadowy height, Of more than mortal seeming to the view, And round its long, thin, bony fingers drew A tatter'd winding-sheet, of course ALL WHITE;-- The moon that moment peeping through a cloud, Nick very plainly saw it THROUGH THE SHROUD! And now those matted locks, which never yet Had yielded to the comb's unkind divorce, Their long-contracted amity forget, And spring asunder with elastic force; Nay, e'en the very cap, of texture coarse, Whose ruby cincture crown'd that brow of jet, Uprose in agony--the Gorgon's head Was but a type of Nick's up-squatting in the bed. From every pore distill'd a clammy dew. Quaked every limb,--the candle too no doubt, En regle, WOULD have burnt extremely blue, But Nick unluckily had put it out; And he, though naturally bold and stout, In short, was in a most tremendous stew;-- The room was fill'd with a sulphureous smell, But where that came from Mason could not tell. All motionless the Specter stood,--and now Its reverend form more clearly shone confest, From the pale cheek a beard of purest snow Descended o'er its venerable breast; The thin gray hairs, that crown'd its furrow'd brow, Told of years long gone by.--An awful guest It stood, and with an action of command, Beckon'd the Cobbler with its wan right hand. "Whence, and what art thou, Execrable Shape?" Nick MIGHT have cried, could he have found a tongue, But his distended jaws could only gape, And not a sound upon the welkin rung, His gooseberry orbs seem'd as they would have sprung Forth from their sockets,--like a frightened Ape He sat upon his haunches, bolt upright, And shook, and grinn'd, and chatter'd with affright. And still the shadowy finger, long and lean, Now beckon'd Nick, now pointed to the door; And many an ireful glance, and frown, between, The angry visage of the Phantom wore, As if quite vexed that Nick would do no more Than stare, without e'en asking, "What d' ye mean?" Because, as we are told,--a sad old joke too,-- Ghosts, like the ladies, "never speak till spoke to."