I wandered around my grandparents'
Home and saw the forbidden door ajar.
Although locked, they told me to steer
Clear, one step in was one step too far.
The room was gloomy, draped in webs,
With a single painting on the wall,
Lighted by a flickering bulb, imploring
Me to flee from the painting’s call.
She looks at me with longing eyes,
The girl in the painting on the wall.
Alive she seems on her swing, legs
Dangling, holding a torn ragged doll.
She’s not alone, children frolic around
Her beside the lake and wild grass.
Yet she swings gazing intently at my
Soul, willing me to touch the frame glass.
My hands obey and reach for her world
And I find myself pulled inside.
I stood before the girl. Hey friend,
I’m Sally, she said, and smiled wide.  
We swam in the lake, played tag, and
Enjoyed a picnic, but the sun never sank.
Minutes rolled to hours and hours, days.
Indeed, time was merely a divine prank.
What’s your name? I would ask the other
Children, but none of them knew.
I’d ask where they came from,
But mumbles they’d only spew.
Sally I must go home! Please help me!
Don’t you like it here? We are friends.
Friends don’t leave, you understand?
Those who come, their stay never ends.
Her smile then twists to a fiendish grin
Revealing jagged, rotten yellow fangs.
Sally giveth, Sally taketh away, Sally
Stole my heart today, the children sang.
Wherever I ran, I’d end up at the same place,
Sally on her swing beneath the oak tree.
She then waved at the glassy blue sky.
My grandparents looked down upon us
With wicked smiles and laughing eyes.
You’ve been a naughty boy, Paul.
Now you’re in the painting on the wall.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!