Below The Mantel

I wake in the night in fever and sweat

With thoughts of the past racing and regret

She's there before me my haunting phantom

My mind asunder is taken ransom

By her ghostly figure and distant anthem

And then her laughter echoes after

I rise and follow faster faster

My mind in shambles. I try to catch her

And just before my hand can grasp her

She's gone; A wisp of ghostly matter

Down the halls I walk and stagger

Door by door throughout the manor

Darkness lit by just a candle

I follow after in reckless trample

The final room I turn the handle

And there a fire below the mantel!

I stand there staring in disbelief

Was she there? or I asleep?...