It was not long after

Fear became my master

And began the possession of my soul

That I began to seeing

Myself in daylight fleeing

Raining down upon my madness uncontrolled

‘Til my mind was wont to wander

Upon the darkness yonder

That now approached my wretched home

In this darkness was no respite

From my situation now so desperate

Turning my merry laughter into moans

Tho’ the moans would not be uttered

From my mouth securely shuttered

Clenched in frightful anticipation of the eve

Moans which sound like humming

Whilst my fingers drumming

As if by this compelling, compelling my frights to leave

They echoed all the louder

In my heart which once was prouder

Of its steely nerve in blackness once before

But now that chest was frantic

With delusions wild and manic

Delusions of beasts from gothic tales of yore

Beasts which lurked unseen

Yet to my senses now so keen

Seemed destined to torment and to destroy

To destroy my home as refuge

From an imagination full of refuse

Refuse of the savage notions employ’d

Employed to keep me pacing

To keep my thoughts in racing

Racing through the fantastic fates ahead

Fates so full of horror

That I would never see the ‘morrow

And would surely share my destiny with the dead

But in death at last I’d sleep

And the specters which I keep

Would in death be my torturers no more

For then I would see them clearly

And they would not appear so weirdly

But rather in my vision in the fore

So they wait for me to be married

To their woeful plane and carried

Carried off to the sad eternity they endure

And I refuse their pleading

And tho’ slumber I am needing

I will not suffer myself to be carried to their shore

Now I sit alert and rigid

As I feel their presence frigid

And with the coming of night, I will sleep no more

I tense and my heart, it quickens

The air around me thickens

And with the coming of night, I must sleep no more