My house is filled with ghosts—
Ghosts of all sorts that sing and dance,
And fill the halls with laughter gay,
And other ghosts that are content
To be philosophers,
And point the way to peace and happiness.
Grim ghosts are there,
Wan specters they of tragedy,
Despairing in their mien,
Compellers all of gloom,
Who fill me full of horror as they pass,
The which, when grown too tense
With contemplation of their evil ways,
I turn away from, summoning
Some ghosts of lyric song to ease the strain,
And find serenity
The while he, smiling, sings to me.
The ghosts of all the famous folk of history
Are there:
Wise Solomon and Charlemagne
And Pericles and Plato; Socrates,
And all the singers of the glory that was Greece
And Rome;
Columbus, Cabot, and their crews,
And Raleigh, brave pathfinders to our newer world;
Sad Louis, and Robespierre of greenish eyes,
The pallid Nemesis of kings;
And he who lost at Waterloo
Comes now and then, and back to glory stalks,
Rehearsing for my thrill the deeds of Lodi's bridge
And Austerlitz;
While Washington's own self strides nobler by,
Crowned with the greener bays
Of his unselfishness;
And Lincoln, heart of godlike mold,
Comes hauntingly to stir
My soul alternately to laughter and to tears.
The noblest thinkers of recorded time
They, too, come by,
And none too bent on more important things
To pause at my behest
And grant to me the ripened fruits
Of their vast cogitations,
And when my faith by some doubt is besieged,
The valiant hosts of followers of the light,
The saintly heroes of the word,
Responding to my call,
Troop in from out the past, and circling me about,
The torch of truth upraised,
Drive forth mine enemy, who never hath withstood
Its splendent flame.
And so the list runs on.
The ghosts of every age are there,
And at the moment of my need,
For cheer, for knowledge, or for sympathy,
They rise at summons and, dismissed, depart,
Not to return until again I call them forth
From off those bending shelves
Whereon,
Within the covers of my books,
They dwell, to bless me with their gifts
Of story and of song,
In payment for my reverent love of them.
The Century Magazine.mw-parser-output .wst-floatright{float:right;text-indent:0}John Kendrick Bangs