It was little past midnight when I awoke,
And by Jove! I would gladly choke
The lousy rat who did rouse me.
The clammy bitterness on the tongue,
My spirit so sadly wrung
From a better world that did enchant me.
Leaping from my chamber like a Lion aft' the foresaid rat,
Caterwauling and catapulted into the Night,
'Neath a sky matted with blood.
No book of Law beneath my arm,
No bastion of morals to soothe and calm,
But the cold merciless frame of Winter.
A little something, it did splinter.
Mean streaks of ice scattered the Valley,
The weeping willows lurched with eerie malevolence.
Then an angel, or a devil, reared its face before me,
Through the myst, upon the dead pond's frozen surface.
On the wind, it whispered: 'Your friends, they will all desert thee;
Your Truth alone, it must suffice'.
'I know that already', I yelled, still seething.
It cooed sorrowfully yet sagely: 'It's too late. You are defeated
where none hath seeing.'
'True...'
Then the face that had so sadly shone turned blue as the moon,
trailed by beams of unkempt stars
Like the bars of a universal song, Or prison window...