Classic Poem

She dreamed she lay in frozen fear,
Yet living, in the icy tomb …
And wakened in the dark to hear
A bat flit-flitter round her room.

Unseen in the cold pitchy night
It circled swiftly overhead
Unceasingly in frightened flight,
Till, as she quaked upon her bed,

Too overcome with fear to stir,
One icicle from head to feet,
The flit-flit-flitter seemed to her
The flurry of her own heart's beat—

Her young heart flying round and round
Imprisoned in its own despair—
The stone-cold chamber underground
With no escape to light and air,

No window to the sun, no door
To winds that call the wanderer,
Where she must dwell for evermore
Since life had broken faith with her.