No More Learning

"
I tried to dodge it as it came,
But somehow caught it, all the same,
Exactly on my nose.

And I remember nothing more
That I can clearly fix,
Till I was sitting on the floor,
Repeating "Two and five are four,
But _five and two_ are six. "

What really passed I never learned,
Nor guessed: I only know
That, when at last my sense returned,
The lamp, neglected, dimly burned--
The fire was getting low--

Through driving mists I seemed to see
A Thing that smirked and smiled:
And found that he was giving me
A lesson in Biography,
As if I were a child.



CANTO IV
Hys Nouryture


"OH, when I was a little Ghost,
A merry time had we!
Each seated on his favourite post,
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast
They gave us for our tea. "

[Picture: We chumped and chawed the buttered toast]

"That story is in print! " I cried.
"Don't say it's not, because
It's known as well as Bradshaw's Guide! "
(The Ghost uneasily replied
He hardly thought it was).

"It's not in Nursery Rhymes? And yet
I almost think it is--
'Three little Ghosteses' were set
'On posteses,' you know, and ate
Their 'buttered toasteses. '

"I have the book; so if you doubt it--"
I turned to search the shelf.
"Don't stir! " he cried. "We'll do without it:
I now remember all about it;
I wrote the thing myself.
"It came out in a 'Monthly,' or
At least my agent said it did:
Some literary swell, who saw
It, thought it seemed adapted for
The Magazine he edited.

"My father was a Brownie, Sir;
My mother was a Fairy.
The notion had occurred to her,
The children would be happier,
If they were taught to vary.

"The notion soon became a craze;
And, when it once began, she
Brought us all out in different ways--
One was a Pixy, two were Fays,
Another was a Banshee;

"The Fetch and Kelpie went to school
And gave a lot of trouble;
Next came a Poltergeist and Ghoul,
And then two Trolls (which broke the rule),
A Goblin, and a Double--

"(If that's a snuff-box on the shelf,"
He added with a yawn,
"I'll take a pinch)--next came an Elf,
And then a Phantom (that's myself),
And last, a Leprechaun.

[Picture: I stood and watched them in the hall] "One day, some
Spectres chanced to call,
Dressed in the usual white:
I stood and watched them in the hall,
And couldn't make them out at all,
They seemed so strange a sight.

"I wondered what on earth they were,
That looked all head and sack;
But Mother told me not to stare,
And then she twitched me by the hair,
And punched me in the back.

"Since then I've often wished that I
Had been a Spectre born.
But what's the use? " (He heaved a sigh. )
"_They_ are the ghost-nobility,
And look on _us_ with scorn.

"My phantom-life was soon begun:
When I was barely six,
I went out with an older one--
And just at first I thought it fun,
And learned a lot of tricks.

"I've haunted dungeons, castles, towers--
Wherever I was sent:
I've often sat and howled for hours,
Drenched to the skin with driving showers,
Upon a battlement.

"It's quite old-fashioned now to groan
When you begin to speak:
This is the newest thing in tone--"
And here (it chilled me to the bone)
He gave an _awful_ squeak.

"Perhaps," he added, "to _your_ ear
That sounds an easy thing?
Try it yourself, my little dear!
It took _me_ something like a year,
With constant practising.