AS I sate the other night, Burning of a single light, All at once a change there came In the colour of the flame. Strange it was the blaze to view, Blue as summer sky is blue: One! two! three! four! five! six! seven! Eight! nine! ten! it struck eleven! Pale as sheet, with stiffen'd hair, Motionless in elbow chair -- Blood congealing -- dead almost -- "Now," thought I, "to see a ghost!" Strange misgiving, true as strange! In the air there came a change, And as plain as mortals be, Lo! a shape confronted me! Lines and features I could trace Like an old familiar face, Thin and pallid like my own, In the morning mirror shown. "Now," he said, and near the grate Drew a chair for @3tete-a-tete@1, Quite at odds, with all decorum, -- "Now, my boys, let's have a jorum!" "Come," he cried, "old fellow, come, Where's the brandy, where's the rum? Where's the kettle -- is it hot? Shall we have some punch, or what?" "Feast of reason -- flow of soul! Where's the sugar, where's the bowl? Lemons I will help to squeeze -- Flip, Egg-hot or what you please!" "Sir," said I, with hectic cough, Shock of nerves to carry off -- Looking at him very hard, "Pray oblige me with a card." "Card," said he -- "Phoo -- nonsense -- stuff! We're acquainted well enough -- Still, my name if you desire, Eighteen Thirty-Eight, Esquire. "Ring for supper! where's the tray? No great time I have to stay, One short hour, and like a May'r, I must quit the yearly Chair!" Scarce could I contain my rage -- O'er the retrospective page, Looking back from date to date, What I owed to Thirty-Eight. Sickness here and sickness there, Pain and sorrow, constant care; Fifty-two long weeks to fall, Nor a trump among them all! "Zounds!" I cried, in quite a huff, "Go -- I've known you long enough. Seek for supper where you please, Here you have not bread and cheese." "Nay," cried he, "were things so ill? Let me have your pardon still -- What I've done to give you pain I will never do again." "As from others, so from you, Let me have my honours due; Soon the parish bells about Will begin to ring me out." "Ring you out? -- With all my heart!" From my chair I made a start, Pull'd the bell and gave a shout -- "Peter, show the Old Year out!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO MY CLASS: ON CERTAIN FRUITS AND FLOWERS SENT ... SICKNESS by SIDNEY LANIER TO OUR MOCKING-BIRD; DIED OF A CAT, MAY, 1878 by SIDNEY LANIER MONUMENT MOUNTAIN by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT THE WIDOW; SAPPHICS by ROBERT SOUTHEY THE HAYLOFT by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON SONNET TO HOPE by HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS THE LAST MAN: CONCEALED JOY by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |