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

We should honor men of yore
country squires who lived before
men who came of noble roots
hedged by horses, crops, and boots -

Who replaced those men of yore
men whose presence filled a door
men who wouldn't take the bait
of the latest thing to hate?

There are those who you can find
of the selfless, meek, and kind -
But, these days those men are feared
by the jealous, they are jeered -

Here we watch accusing fools
weaving all their woke-up rules -
Why do they do what they do?
Because the devil told them to -