Are there no phantoms, but such as come By night from the darkness that wraps the tomb?-- A sound, a scent, or a whispering breeze Can summon up mightier far than these! But I may not linger amidst them here! Lovely they are, and yet things to fear; Passing and leaving a weight behind, And a thrill on the chords of the stricken mind. Away, away, that my soul may soar, As a free bird of blue skies once more, Here from its wing it may never cast The chains by those Spirits brought back from the past. Doubt it not--smile not--but go thou, too, Look on the scenes where thy childhood grew-- Where thou hast prayed at thy mother's knee, Where thou hast roved with thy brethren free; Go thou, when life unto thee is changed, Friends thou hast loved as thy soul, estranged; When from the idols thy heart hath made, Thou hast seen the colors of glory fade; Oh! painfully then, by the wind's low sigh, By the voice of the stream, by the flower-cup's dye, By a thousand tokens of sight and sound, Thou wilt feel thou art treading on hallowed ground. CHAPTER XXXI. MISCELLANEOUS INCIDENTS (_Continued_). CROWD OF SPIRITS MADE VISIBLE BY LIGHTNING--SCARCELY CREDIBLE BUT TRUE--A GAME OF EUCHRE--MARGARET'S DREAM--MISTAKEN NAMES CORRECTED BY SPIRITS--AN UNWILLING CONVERT MADE GRATEFUL AND HAPPY. CROWD OF SPIRITS MADE VISIBLE BY LIGHTNING. One Sunday evening, in Ludlow Place, occurred the grandest manifestations of Spirit presence I ever witnessed or heard of. Our good friend Dr. A. D. Wilson and his friend Dr. Kirby had come in the Doctor's carriage; and, as a great thunder-storm was gathering fast overhead, he ordered the carriage home, to return at nine o'clock, or when the storm should be over. We sat round the table in my private room on the second floor, four of us--the two gentlemen, mother, and myself. Soon the vivid lightning flashed and the near thunder rolled and rattled overhead: while in the intervals the blackest of darkness was around us, the Spirits having directed us not to have lights. The "raps" bade us to sing: and, my mother leading, we sang the Methodist hymn: "I'm a pilgrim; I'm a stranger," etc. (my father and mother were Methodists). But as the peals and flashes came so mightily I was afraid, and thought it unseemly for us to sing in the presence of these grand manifestations of the lights and the voices of the heavens. Presently Dr. Wilson started up with the exclamation, "Oh my God! there's my mother," and we all saw a form in the doorway leading from our room to another in the rear. And then, to his friend Dr. Kirby, "And there's your mother with her arms around your neck!" And then again to my mother, "Oh, Mrs. Fox, there's your noble father by you!" And we all saw _the Spirits_. The whole room was crowded with a glorious company of Spirits!