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.
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