The Call of St Nicholas

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see ‘twas the matter.
But out on the snow did nothing appear,
Good old St Nicholas still wasn’t here.

But then on the roof, I heard something strange,
A whisper, a murmur, from some distant age.
The secrets it held, antiquarian lore,
Perhaps I could glean if I listened some more.

I crept to the hearth, feet light on the ground
For I couldn’t resist that unutt’rable sound.
No language it was that I’d ever heard,
But something that from the Beyond had emerged.

It spoke of a city far under the sea,
A blasphemous place not for you or for me.
Cyclopean blocks and slime-covered stones
Were the things that gave form to the great city’s bones.

And then I was there! I was walking its streets!
Was I waking or dreaming? Was this some deceit?
I wandered the towers, indescribable halls;
I saw the daemoniac shapes on the walls!

The proportions were wrong in this place, I was sure.
But what did it matter? It’s ancient allure
Drew me deeper and deeper; I wanted to learn
All the things that I could before I returned.

But that’s when I saw it, the Thing which does Sleep,
A Thing that should never return from the Deep.
I stopped where I stood, no more steps could I take
For what if this unnameable Thing should awake?

What madness was this? Was I back in my bed?
What had I witnessed? Just a dream in my head?
No, I know what I saw, I know it was real.
Somehow I had seen What Should not be Revealed.

They say I’ve gone mad, that my words are unclear,
That I gibber and murmur of this Thing I so fear.
But it is a mercy that they do not know
All the Truths of the Things that are lurking below.