| AT four o’clock in late October | |
| I sat alone in the country school-house | |
| Back from the road ’mid stricken fields, | |
| And an eddy of wind blew leaves on the pane, | |
| And crooned in the flue of the cannon-stove, | 5 |
| With its open door blurring the shadows | |
| With the spectral glow of a dying fire. | |
| In an idle mood I was running the planchette— | |
| All at once my wrist grew limp, | |
| And my hand moved rapidly over the board, | 10 |
| Till the name of “Charles Guiteau” was spelled, | |
| Who threatened to materialize before me. | |
| I rose and fled from the room bare-headed | |
| Into the dusk, afraid of my gift. | |
| And after that the spirits swarmed— | 15 |
| Chaucer, Cæsar, Poe and Marlowe, | |
| Cleopatra and Mrs. Surrat— | |
| Wherever I went, with messages,— | |
| Mere trifling twaddle, Spoon River agreed. | |
| You talk nonsense to children, don’t you? | 20 |
| And suppose I see what you never saw | |
| And never heard of and have no word for, | |
| I must talk nonsense when you ask me | |
| What it is I see! | |
