The Haunted Homes of England, How eerily they stand, While through them flit their ghosts—to wit, The Monk with the Red Hand, The Eyeless Girl—an awful spook—  To stop the boldest breath, The boy that inked his copybook, And so got ‘wopped’ to death!

The

Call them not shams—from haunted Glamis To haunted Woodhouselea, I mark in hosts the grisly ghosts I hear the fell Banshie! I know the spectral dog that howls Before the death of Squires; In my ‘Ghosts’-guide’ addresses hide For Podmore and for Myers!

p. 76I see the Vampire climb the stairs  From vaults below the church; And hark! the Pirate’s spectre swears! O Psychical Research, Canst thou not hear what meets my ear, The viewless wheels that come? The wild Banshie that wails to thee? The Drummer with his drum?

p. 76

O Haunted Homes of England, Though tenantless ye stand, With none content to pay the rent, Through all the shadowy land, Now, Science true will find in you A sympathetic perch, And take you all, both Grange and Hall, For Psychical Research!

p. 77THE DISAPPOINTMENT

p. 77

A house I took, and many a spook Was deemed to haunt that House, I bade the glum Researchers come With Bogles to carouse. That House I’d sought with anxious thought,  ’Twas old, ’twas dark as sin, And deeds of bale, so ran the tale, Had oft been done therein.

house

Full many a child its mother wild, Men said, had strangled there, Full many a sire, in heedless ire, Had slain his daughter fair! ’Twas rarely let: I can’t forget A recent tenant’s dread, This widow lone had heard a moan Proceeding from her bed.

p. 78The tenants next were chiefly vexed By spectres grim and grey. A Headless Ghost annoyed them most, And so they did not stay. The next in turn saw corpse lights burn, And also a Banshie, A spectral Hand they could not stand, And left the House to me.

p. 78

Then came my friends for divers ends, Some curious, some afraid; No direr pest disturbed their rest Than a neat chambermaid. The grisly halls were gay with balls, One melancholy nook Where ghosts galore were seen before Now yielded ne’er a spook.

When man and maid, all unafraid,  ‘Sat out’ upon the stairs, No spectre 

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