Okay, found it! Here is the passage that
introduces Ephraim. Merrill and his friend David Jackson are at the ouija board:
Correct but cautious, that first night we asked
our visitor's name, era, habitat.
EPHRAIM came the answer. A Greek Jew
born AD 8 at XANTHOS. Where was that?
In Greece WHEN WOLVES & RAVENS WER IN ROME
(Next the classical dictionary yielded
a Xanthos on the Asia Minor coast.)
NOW WHO ARE U. We told him. ARE U XTIANS
We guessed so. WHAT A COZY CATACOMB
Christ had WROUGHT HAVOC in his family,
ENTICED MY FATHER FROM MY MOTHER'S BED
(I too had issued from a broken home-
the first of several facts to coincide.)
Later a favorite of TIBERIUS, Died
AD 36 on CAPRI, throttled
by the imperial guard for having loved
THE MONSTERS NEPHEW (sic) CALIGULA.
*******
Was he a devil? His reply MY POOR
INNOCENTS left the issue hanging fire.
As it flowed on, his stream-of-consciousness
deepened. There was a buried room, A BED
WROUGHT IN SILVER I CAN LEAD U THERE
IF If? YOU GIVE ME What? HA HA YR SOULS
(Another time he'll say that he misread
our innocence for insolence that night
and meant to scare us.) Our eyes met. What if...
The blood's least vessel hoisted jet-black sails.
Five whole minutes we were frightened stiff
--But after all, we weren't THAT innocent.
The Rover Boys at thirty, still red-blooded
enough not to pass up an armchair revel
and pur enough at heart to beat the devil,
entered into the spirit, so to speak
and said they'd leave for Capri that same week.
Pause. Then, as though we'd passed a test,
Ephraim's whole manner changed. He brushed aside
Tiberius and settled to the task
of answering, like an experienced guide,
those questions we had lacked the wit to ask.
(Merrill capitalizes every line, which I was too lazy
to do. Also, I see that he's mostly using blank verse
here. I remembered the whole thing as being in couplets.)
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