Paschal Beverly Randolph - A Spectral Visitant lyrics

It must be confessed that this was a singular story, and smelled very strongly of either Hartz-mountainism or its equivalent, imagination. He continued his story thus: “I did not know all this at five years old, of course. The only thing I did fully comprehend was the loss of my mother—her strange silence—the woeful look of those who hugged my little head and said ‘Poor child!' I tried hard to be manly and not cry, as they bade me, but it was useless, and the tears welled up in floods from my poor little childish heart. Have you ever lost a mother? “As I nestled on the bed where she lay so very still, I asked the bystanding mourners where the talking part of my mother had gone to? If she would never talk to, love and pet me any more? and they said ‘Never more,' and they repeated that dreadful but untrue refrain till my poor heart was full almost to bursting, with its load and pressure of grief; and then I threw myself upon her dear body, and cried till tears refused to flow, for I had lost my mother, sirs—I had lost my mother! Would that I could weep now as I did then; it would relieve my over-burdened heart. But I cannot, for the tear fountain seldom thaws. The floods still gather and well up, but they freeze ere they reach the surface, and the heart strings snap and crack, but they will not break. I wish they would, so that I might join, even for a while, that dear mother whom I loved so well. “Childhood's griefs are written with a feather, upon warm parchment, with stainless ink; but the heart's greater woes are burned into the memory with a fiery iron stylus; the first lines speedily wear away; the last are ineffaceable. As I lay upon the cold breast of my darling mother, a woman said to me, ‘Do not cry, poor child! She is happy now! She has just gone up, on her way to heaven!' And I believed what that woman said; and I looked out through the deep foliage of the trees hard by; looked eagerly up into the sky, expecting to see her ascending soul; and as my eye caught the shadowy fleece of a melting silvery cloud, I thought and believed it to be my mother's sainted soul. I half believe so still; for as the cloud vanished into nothingness on the breast of the blue, I distinctly heard a voice, gentle, soft, and sweetly mournful, like unto the dying notes of a wind-harp, lightly touched by the zephyr's breath, whisper in my ear these words—which at that time I could not fully comprehend—‘Lonely one of the ages! there may be rest for thee in the life thou'rt now commencing. Let thy motto be—TRY! Despond not, but ever remember that how bitter soever our lot may be, that despite it all, WE MAY BE HAPPY YET! Peace, poor child! Thou'rt watched and guarded by thy mother!' ‘and the stranger,' added another, and more silvery voice from out the deep stillness of that noon-tide heaven. I knew that mystic voice—the first one—and felt that it was from beyond Time's threshold. I trusted it's sacred words of promise, for I had, child as I was, an unshaken faith, an intuition, if you will, that instant flowing to me, that my blessed mother still lived. “From that hour commenced a strange, double existence to and in me. Two instances, perfectly true in all respects, I will relate, either of which forever settled in my mind that some human beings consciously survive the ordeal of d**h. Not long after my irreparable loss, I, along with several other children, went to bed in the roof chamber of that dark old house. Something had occurred of a merry turn, and we were all brimful of joy and glee, and our mirth was as loud as it dared be for fear of the ogres down stairs, who had a bad habit of enforcing silence through the medium of sundry straps and birch twigs. In the very midst of the uproar the bed-clothes were slowly, carefully lifted from off us by agencies totally invisible. We pulled them back; but again and again they were removed, and the movement was accompanied by a din and clatter, as if fifty cannon balls were rolling on the floor; and it immediately brought the ogres and their straps from down stairs to see what was the matter. So far as terror permitted we explained, whereupon the ogres looked scaredly wise, readjusted the quilts and retreated. No sooner had they left than the cannon balls began again to roll over the floor, and mustering courage to rise and grapple for the coverlet, which had again been pulled from us, I clearly and distinctly saw a female figure calmly standing at the foot of the bed, but not upon the floor, for she floated like a vapor on the air. There was but little, if any, light in the room, save that which surrounded, and appeared to emanate from the spectral figure. She stood in the midst of a silvery or phosphoric haze. It was by no means phantasmal in appearance, but so clear, sharp, well defined did the apparition seem, that to this day I remember distinctly the figures on what appeared to be the dress she wore, which fact involves a mystery no psychologist has yet been able to fathom satisfactorily. The children who also saw this sight were terrified; I was not, for I felt she would not harm me, for the reason that mothers love their offspring, and that figure was my mother. “Some considerable time elapsed after this. I had grown into a stout and active boy, having already drifted for some years up and down the world, and once found myself registered as cabin boy on board the brig Phœbe, of New Bedford, whereof one Alonzo Baker was captain—not of New Bedford—but the brig. “In this vessel I served for several months, to the satisfaction of no one, myself included, being too small, weak and delicate for the arduous duties required of me, and consequently had to pay the usual penalty. “Sailors, to a man, are superstitious, though less so now than in the days whereof I am speaking. Still, at present, it is not hard, in spite of the march of intellect, to find sailors who, between the dog-watch and eight bells, will spin you a yarn under the weather rail that will make a man's hair stand on end like hairs on an enraged kitten. “On board the Phœbe there were several old salts, and many were the tales they told of the ghosts of murdered sailors, appearing in the midst of dreadful storms, to encourage foremast Jacks, and frighten the souls of guilty mates and captains; and of course all this tended to deepen the vein of superstition and mysticism running through me. Often have I been apprized of the presence and power of the dead or of those who never die, and, when tempted to share the dangerous pleasures of my older comrades, been mysteriously saved. “Sailors, like everybody else, are fond of power, and delight in lording it over those whom chance or accident places in their power; and on every vessel there is one man who is sure to be the bu*t and target for petty tyranny and abuse. On board the Phœbe this fell to my lot; and not being able to forcibly resist, I took care to hide in my chest about a gallon of rum, into which about half an ounce of croton oil, from the medicine chest had previously been poured. I labelled the jug ‘Poison.' Croton oil is the most infamously active purgative known. The sailors found the jug, read the label—didn't believe it—drank the liquor, and were actively engaged for several hours thereafter, as a consequence. A more earnest, swift-moving set of men were never seen. They had no relish for supper that night. They beat me unmercifully, but I was revenged. Still they abused me, until one day a sailor tweaked my nose in the galley, and for his pains received half a gallon of hot lard in the waist-band, which troubled him wonderfully.... At last I meditated suicide as a relief, and, in a paroxysm of rage and despair, such as boys only are subject to, actually ran aft to accomplish it by leaping over the taffrail into the surging sea, when I was arrested by a narrow blast of warm—almost hot air, which thrilled me to the very centre of my being, and almost pinned me to the deck, while at the same time there flowed into my soul an eloquent and indignant protest against my supreme folly, accompanied by the spoken words, ‘Be patient! TRY!' “It is impossible to attribute all these things to imagination. “One evening, a long time after the occurrence just related, a company of ladies and gentlemen, in a house situated near the observatory, Portland, Maine, were conversing upon the general subject of ghosts, and rewards and punishments after d**h. When we sat down there were thirteen persons in the room, and thirteen persons only. We became deeply absorbed in the discussion, indeed so much so, that the host gave the servant strict orders not to disturb us, and to refuse admission to any person whatever. And thus we all talked freely, the servant seated in the hall, close by the door. No one was admitted. Presently one person, by reason of his eloquence and venerable appearance, engrossed all our attention by the thrilling things he told, although he did not join the conversation till over an hour after we had begun it; nor did his conversation appear at all intrusive. He was the fourteenth person, although we did not realize the fact till we were separating, and he had disappeared. Upon inquiry no one knew him, had ever seen him before, or observed his departure—not even the servant, who declared that for two hours no one had pa**ed him either way. It was voted ‘very strange,' and that for our own credit sake the matter should be ‘hushed up;' but we agreed to meet again at the same house, that day-week, to discuss the matter, and compare opinions arrived at in the interim.”