Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Spiritualism, Superstition, Belief

    Considering Christmas ghosts to be obsolete, the writer suggests their replacement by 'Spirit Lights' and other phenomena associated with spiritualism. 'Instead of groaning, Ghosts rap tables', while '"mediums" rise by "levitation" / And subject them to elongation' and perform such feats as floating out of two-storey windows and materialising fruit on tables. Warns that 'There is a lady, Mrs. Guppy, / Mark, shallow scientific puppy', the 'heaviest' medium in London who was carried three miles by spirits to a séance. Concludes by describing other spiritualistic phenomena and suggests, 'How much more credible and pleasant / Than the old Spirits are the present'.