Zilpha Marsh

At four o'clock in late October         I sat alone in the country school-house         Back from the road, mid stricken fields,         And an eddy of wind blew leaves on the pane,         And crooned in the flue of the cannon-stove,         With its open door blurring the shadows         With the spectral glow of a dying fire.         In an idle mood I was running the planchette -         All at once my wrist grew limp,         And my hand moved rapidly over the board,         'Till the name of "Charles Guiteau" was spelled,         Who threatened to materialize before me.         I rose and fled from the room bare-headed         Into the dusk, afraid of my gift.         And after that the spirits swarmed -         Chaucer, Caesar, Poe and Marlowe,         Cleopatra and Mrs. Surratt -         Wherever I went, with messages, -         Mere trifling twaddle, Spoon River agreed.         You talk nonsense to children, don't you?         And suppose I see what you never saw         And never heard of and have no word for,         I must talk nonsense when you ask me         What it is I see!