When The Embalmer Closed My Eyes, And All The Family Went In Black, And Shipped Me Off To Paradise, I Had No Thought Of Coming Back; I Dreamed Of Undisturbed Repose Until The Judgment Day Went Crack, Tucked Safely In From Top To Toes. "I've Done My Bit," I Said. "I've Earned The Right To Take Things At My Ease!" When Folk Declared The Dead Returned, I Called It All Tomfooleries. "They Are Too Glad To Get To Bed, To Stretch Their Weary Limbs In Peace; Done With It All - The Lucky Dead!" But Scarcely Had I Laid Me Down, When Comes A Voice: "Is That You, Joe? I'm Calling You From Williamstown! Knock Once For 'Yes,' And Twice For 'No.'" Then, Hornet-Mad, I Knocked Back Two - The Table Shook, I Banged It So - "Not Joe!" They Said, "Then Tell Us Who? "We're Waiting - Is There No One Here, No Friend, You Have A Message For?" But I Pretended Not To Hear. "Perhaps He Fell In The Great War?" "Perhaps He's German?" Someone Said; "How Goes It On The Other Shore?" "That's No Way To Address The Dead!" And So They Talked, Till I Got Sore, And Made The Blooming Table Rock, And Ribald Oaths And Curses Swore, And Strange Words Guaranteed To Shock. "He's One Of Those Queer Spooks They Call A Poltergeist - The Ghosts That Mock, Throw Things - " Said One, Who Knew It All. "I Wish An Old Thigh-Bone Was Round To Break Your Silly Head!" I Knocked. "A Humourist Of The Burial-Ground!" A Bright Young College Graduate Mocked. Then A Young Girl Fell In A Trance, And Foamed: "Get Out - We Are Deadlocked - And Give Some Other Ghost A Chance!" Such Was My First Night In The Tomb, Where Soft Sleep Was To Hold Me Fast; I Little Knew My Weary Doom! It Even Makes A Ghost Aghast To Think Of All The Years In Store - The Slave, As Long As Death Shall Last, To Ouija-Boards Forevermore. For Morning, Noon, And Night They Call! Alive, Some Fourteen Hours A Day I Worked, But Now I Work Them All. No Sooner Down My Head I Lay, A Lady Writer Knocks Me Up About A Novel Or A Play, Nor Gives Me Time For Bite Or Sup. I Hear Her Damned Typewriter Click With All The Things She Says I Say, You'd Think The Public Would Get Sick; And That's My Only Hope - Some Day! Then S?Ances, Each Night In Dozens I Must Attend, Their Parts To Play For Dead Grandpas And Distant Cousins. O For My Life To Live Again! I'd Know Far Better Than To Die; You'd Never Hear Me Once Complain, Could I But See The Good Old Sky, For Here They Work Me To The Bone; "Rest!" - Don't Believe It! Well, Good-By! That's Patience Worth There On The Phone!