Chamber of Fears

Alone I sit in the ancient chamber,
Where spiders spin webs of sorrow,
And the windows are boarded and nailed,
Deterring light from shining in,
As I wallow in impenetrable darkness.

Dust teems on my unshakable limbs,
The hand on the clock drums incessantly,
While with anxious eyes I watch time's escape;
Outside a parade passes in reckless fanfare,
Its effusions of joy infiltrating my deaf ears,
And fading away as quickly as it came.

Cracks between the boards offer rays of hope,
Which dance beneath the gluttonous clock,
Reminding me of the long-gone golden days
And her pale, wide-eyed, and undiluted beauty,
Entreating of me to take a stroll outside;
My slothful heart leaps in boundless mirth,
And I almost spring from the prison chair,
But my stay is permeated by incurable shyness.

Slowly but surely, my mind starts to decompose,
For in this lonely chamber I've met no repose
Dreaming of an end to this interminable isolation,
My eyes suffering drought after tides of tears;
In this old chamber I'll live without consolation,
Until the day when vanished are my fears.