While alone the midnight hour
in the upper abbey tower
when the air became much colder
I felt a hand upon my shoulder

Jumping to a panicked flight
never looking left or right
taking stairs four by four
racing for the bottom floor

I will never know what being
or what ghastly hollow thing
touched me in that darkened room
promising my dreadful doom

But, I know that I can tell
in this simple quatranelle
you can search but never find
horrors worst than in the mind