"Headlong Hall." He was thirty-two when "Melincourt" was given to the world, and in it his inimitable "Ghosts:"—
"In life three ghostly friars were we,
And now three friendly ghosts we be.
Around our shadowy table placed,
The spectral bowl before us floats:
With wine that none but ghosts can taste
We wash our unsubstantial throats.
Three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts are we:
Let the ocean be port, and we'll think it good sport
To be laid in that Red Sea.
"With songs that jovial spectres chant,
Our old refectory still we haunt.
The traveler hears our midnight mirth:
'O list,' he cries, 'the haunted choir!
The merriest ghost that walks the earth
Is now the ghost of a ghostly friar.'
Three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts are we:
Let the ocean be port, and we'll think it good sport
To be laid in that Red Sea."
The next year, in "Nightmare Abbey," appeared the best known and the most admirable of all his glees, a song which holds its own even in an alien world, which is an admitted favorite with singing societies, and which we have all of us heard from time to time chanted
