Terror by Night

Rising from the unhallowed grave,
See the mists that float and wreathe
Into shapes that seem like men,
Seem to live and seem to breathe.
From the coffin filled with blood,
Where the ghastly body lies
Underneath the sodden earth,
With rosy cheeks and opened eyes,
With bloodied lips and hands, with feet
That walk their silent ways by night,
Seeking a victim young and fair
Before the dawn puts them to flight.

They sink again into the tomb,
A wreath of mist around the stone,
Smell of the rotting charnel house
That hovers when the mist has gone.
These are the Un-Dead, known of old,
Whispered with dread, with muttered prayer;
The vampire-kind who live on blood
Sucked from the sleeping everywhere.

As smoke curls through the window cracks,
As mist blows underneath the door,
The vampire slides into the house
Through broken roof, through gaping floor,
And silently seeks out the room,
Seeks out the sleeper in his bed,
And leaves again, swollen with blood,
But leaves the sleeper cold and dead.

Seek out the unholy grave and drive
A stake into the fiendish heart!
Take holy water, sprinkle it
And charge the hideous thing depart!
Hang garlic then around the door,
A crucifix within the room,
And so the house will ever be
Safe from the vampire and its doom.
--Anon


Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing, nor would I wish to (hah, yeah right) ... ahem.