The day was long sped,
The stars overhead
For three hours or longer their glimmer had shed,
Since the sun had retired remarkably red,
As if the Atlantic had flown to his head,
When Timothy Tadpole turned into his bed.
It was Christmas night,
And a beautiful sight
Was each little star with his modest light,
As if half afraid
Of lending his aid
To the glorious canopy heaven displayed.
Mr. Timothy Tadpole had dined that day
In the ancient and orthodox Christmas way,
Turkey and sausages, roast beef and ham,
Plum-pudding and mince-pies, he’d managed to cram,
With custards and syllabubs, jellies and jam;
And claret and sherry,
And champagne in very
Large glasses, which every one voted the right tap;
And port which they dish up,
And call it a “bishop,”
With lemons and nutmegs[19] by way of a “nightcap.”
And many a toast,
From the health of the host
To the health of the fair one each tippler loved most,
He had drunk, with a swallow few mortals can boast—
And “Hip, hip, hooray!”
He had shouted that day
In a highly excited convivial way,
’Mid Bacchanal ditties, and protests of scorning
To think of retiring to rest before morning.
So when Timothy Tadpole turned into his bed
An ill-natured chronicler might p’r’aps have said
That he carried a little too much in his head—
An uncommon event, too, since Timothy’s brains
Were computed to weigh such a very few grains
That in Timothy’s head you’d have found them as soon
As a pair of dried peas in the Nassau Balloon.
And while Timothy lay,
In a restless way,
Turning, and twisting, and kicking, and rolling,
That you couldn’t suppose
He’d a bit of repose,
The bell of St. George’s was grimly tolling!
Slowly, deeply, boomed the bell—
Midnight hour! it seemed the knell
Of hopes, joys, griefs, pains, pleasures dead,
Gone with the short-lived day that was fled;
Another day from the tiny span
That makes the weal and woe of man!
Yes, twelve at night—
That hour of fright
When ghosts pop out of their graves in white,
And glide and slink
Through keyhole or chink,
Or up the chimney or down the sink;
And frighten poor sinners, who quake as they tell
Of the terrible sight—and the brimstone smell!
As Timothy snored, and kicked, and rolled,
And the bell of St. George’s grimly tolled,
Just as the last stroke died on the air
The candle emitted a bluish glare,
(For gentlemen coming home late at night
Often forget to extinguish the light;)
It flickered, and spluttered, and out it went
With a pop, and a hiss, and a nasty scent.
And as it went out a ghost walked in!
An orthodox ghost, with a churchyard grin;
From the head to the feet
Wrapped in a sheet
As white as pure snow—so that, if a man can guess,
You’d fancy the ghost had a capital laundress.
Yet the ghost, though pale, wasn’t lanky or lean,
Like all ghosts that I’ve ever yet heard of or seen,
But had rather a corpulent, greasy, fat look,
Like an alderman’s ghost, or the ghost of a cook.
As the ghost walked in poor Timothy woke,
And the ghostly vision on Timothy broke;
And Timothy’s eyeballs glare and stare,
And up on end goes Timothy’s hair,
And Timothy shivers with agitation,
And his body’s quite damp with perspiration—
A common effect of consternation.