POETRY.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 28, 2 July 1874, Page 3

POETRY.

THE GHOST THAT JIM SAW. Tsy Bbet Hartk. " Why, as to that," said the engineer. " Ghosts ain't things we are apt to fear, Spirits don't fool with levers much, ' And throttle-valves don't take to such ; And as for Jim— What happened to him Was one half fact and t'other half whim ! " Running one night on the line, he saw > A house—as plain as the moral law— Just at the moonlit bank, and thence Came a drunken man with no more sense Than to drop ou the rail, Flat as a flail, As Jim drove by with the midnight mailj " Down went the patents. Steam reversed. Too late ! for there came a ' thud.' Jim cursed. As his fireman, there in the cab with him, Kinder started in the face of Jim, And says, ' What now ?' Says Jim, ' What now ! I've just run over a man—that's how !' " The fireman stared at Jim. They ran Back, but they never found house nor man— Nary a shadow within a mile. Jim turned pale, but he tried to smile— Then on he tore Ten mile or more, In quicker time than he'd made afore. " Would you believe it I —the very next night Up rose that house in the moonlight white; Out comes the chap and drops as before. Down goes the brakes, and the rest encore— And so, in fact, E *ch night the act Occured till folks thought Jim was cracked. " Humph ! Let me see ; it's a year now, most, That I met Jim, east, and says 'How's your ghost V ' Gone,' says Jim ; ' and more, it's plain That ghost don't trouble me again ; I thought I shook That ghost when I took A place on the Eastern line—but look ; " ' What should I meet the first trip out, But that very house that we talked about, And that self-same man 1 " Well," said 1, " I guess It's time to stop this yer foolishness." So I crammed on steam, When there came a scream From my fireman and it broke my dream — " ' You've killed Bomebody V Says I, ' not much ; I've been thar often and thar ain't no such, And now I'll prove it.' Back we ran, And—darn my skin! —but thar was a man On the rail dead, Smashed on the head— Now I call that meanness 1" That's all Jim said.