Are you Afraid of the Dark?

The Dark things always come at night.

To them midnight is noonday sun,

the inky black bright as gold.

The nameless fears are life and breath,

the eerie wind their pleasured sighs.

The crawling hairs their soft caress,

the quickened pulse their thundering heart.

The sleep denied their aimless glory.

Shadows steal across my heart

as nightmare feeds the hideous fiends

who savour my mounting fright

thro the gloom in which I lie.

When comes the dawn?  They fear the day.

they dissipate and fade away

as do all shadows in the sun.

For darkness cannot feed itself,

our secret dread their nightly bread,

my hollow heart their fearful feast

renewed as every evening dawns.

Where comes this holy terror from?

Do I create it from my soul,

or do insidious spirits fan

and stoke the fearful fires of old

that all who dream have ever known?

Black is the air, more so my fear

chokes my slumber ere it begins.

I cannot tell at what glad hour

Rest finds me, engulfs at last

my weary limbs.  No darkness reigns

in slumber that preceeds the morn.

O happy sleep!  May no more dreams

assail my mind.                         

                               And so, Good Night.

An original composition by David Smith.