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.