| Tarnished mirror in the hall
|
| Reflects the ghosts that come to call
|
| Dressed in dusty silken gowns
|
| Dancing in the shadowed sounds
|
| Eyes like echoes not quite there
|
| Should be dead but instead stare
|
| Behind me up stairs they bound
|
| They’re gone when I have turned around
|
| On the walls that seem to cry
|
| Are the monsters finally free?
|
| Oh, what secrets do they hide
|
| Behind the family tapestry?
|
| A handless maiden leads a mare
|
| Through half-deserted bedrooms bare
|
| To her the sunlight filters in
|
| From out behind the red curtains
|
| A little girl in framed attire
|
| Hangs her locks above the fire
|
| She takes your hand, writes her lines
|
| Drench the page with children’s rhymes
|
| In the walls that seem to cry
|
| Are the monsters finally free?
|
| Oh, what secrets do they hide
|
| These bright-lit whispered histories?
|
| Smoking jackets play around
|
| What house of theirs once fallen down
|
| Is crept in ruins behind closed doors
|
| In hallways not gone down before
|
| A lonely reader in the gloom
|
| Hears footsteps in the other room
|
| It’s only children playing ball
|
| In the tarnished mirror in the hall
|
| In the rooms that seem to cry
|
| Are the monsters finally free?
|
| Oh, what secrets do they hide?
|
| Is the only monster me? |