A VISIT TO BORDERLAND.
I called on Mr. Stead last week, at least I seemed to call,
For in this "visionary" world one can't be sure at all;
And when I reached the great man's house he shook me by the hand,
And talked, as only Stead can talk, of Spooks and Borderland,
I own that I was tired of men who live upon the earth,
They hadn't recognised, I felt, my full and proper worth;
"They'll judge me much more fairly," I reflected, "when they're dead,—
So I'll go and seek an interview with William Thomas Stead."
The reason why I went to Stead is this: the great and good
Has lately found that English ghosts are much misunderstood;
Substantial man may swagger free, but, spite of all his boasts,
STEAD holds there is a future, and a splendid one, for ghosts.
And so he has an office, a sort of ghostly Cook's,
Where tours may be contracted for to Borderland and Spooks;
And those who yearn to mix with ghosts have only got to go
And talk, as I conversed, with Stead for half an hour or so.
The ghosts have got a paper too, the Borderland I spoke of,
Where raps and taps are registered that scoffers make a joke of:
A medium's magazine it is, a ghostly gazetteer
Produced by William Thomas Stead, the Julianic seer.
And everything that dead men do to help the men who live,
The chains they clank, the sighs they heave, the warnings that they give,
The coffin-lids they lift at night when folk are tucked in bed,
Are all set down in black and white by William Thomas Stead.
While wide-awake he sees such shapes as others merely dream on;
For instance there is Julia, a sort of female dæmon;
Like some tame hawk she stoops to him, she perches on his wrist—
In life she was a promising, a lady journalist;
And now that death has cut her off she leaves the ghostly strand
And turns her weekly copy out by guiding William's hand.
Yet, oh, it makes me writhe like one who sits him down on tin tacks
To note that happy ghost's contempt for grammar and for syntax.
Well, well, I called on Stead, you know; a doctor's talk of diet is,
And Stead's was of his psychic food as cure for my anxieties.
I thought I'd take a chair to sit (it looked to me quite common) on,
"You can't sit there," observed the Sage; "that's merely a phenomenon."
Two ladies, as I entered, seemed expressing of their gratitudes
For help received to Mr. Stead in sentimental attitudes;
They saw me, pirouetted twice, then vanished with a high kick.
"It's nothing," said the Editor; "they are not real, but psychic."
These things, I own, surprised me much; I fidgetted uneasily;
"Why, bless the man, he's had a shock!" said Mr. Stead, quite breezily.
"We do these things the whole year round, it's merely knack to do them;
A man who does them every day gets quite accustomed to them.
This room of mine is full of ghosts,"—it sounded most funereal—
"I've only got to say the word to make them all material.
I'll say it promptly, if you wish; they cannot well refuse me."
But my eagerness had vanished, and I begged him to excuse me.
"Now Julia," he continued, "is in many ways a rum one,
But, whatever else they say of her, they can't say she's a dumb one.
She speaks—she's speaking now," he said. "I wonder what she'll tell us.
What's that? She says she likes your looks; she wants to make me jealous."
That gave me pause, and made me think 'twas fully time I went; it is
A fearful thing to fascinate these bodiless non-entities.
Of course when people go to Rome they act like folk at Rome, you know,
But flirting didn't suit my book—I've got a wife at home, you know.
Well, next I felt a gust of wind, "That's Colonel Bones," my host said;
"He's dropped his helmet" (think of that, a helmet on a ghost's head).
"I don't much care," he whispered this, "in fact, I can't endure him;
Dragoons do use such awful words; I've tried in vain to cure him."
I ventured to suggest to Stead that rather than be bluffed I
Would make this cursing soldier-ghost turn out in psychic mufti;
He couldn't drop his helmet then, nor threaten with his sabre.
"I've tried to," said the Editor, "it's only wasted labour.
"I've sought advice," continued Stead, "from Cantuar and Ebor,
They hinted that they couldn't stand a she-ghost and a he-bore.
I tried to get a word or two from men of arts and letters,
They said they drew the line at Spooks who made a noise with fetters.
And when I talked of bringing men and ghostly shapes together
The Bishops tapped their foreheads and conversed about the weather.
In fact"—he grew quite petulant—"in all this world's immensity
I'd back the Bench of Bishops to beat the rest in density."
And so he talked, till suddenly—(perhaps he's talking still;
In talking of his own affairs, he has a wondrous skill)—
There came a noise, as if Old Bones had let off all his blanks at once,
As if a thousand theorists were turning all their cranks at once;
It seemed to lift me off my legs, and seize me by the hair,
And sweep me mute but terrified through all the spook-filled air.
And, when I got my senses back, I vowed no more to tread
The paths that lead to Borderland, nor ask advice of Stead.