All around the house is the jet black night;
It stares through the window-pane;
It creeps in the corners, hiding from the light,
And it moves with the moving flame.
Now my little heart goes a-beating like a drum,
With the breath of the bogie in my hair;
While all around the candle the crooked shadows come
And go marching along up the stair.
The shadow of the baluster, the shadow of the light,
The shadow of the child that goes to bed,
All the wicked shadows come a tramp, tramp, tramp,
With the black night overhead.
