Horrible Qualities - Josh Ritter

Tarnished mirror in the hall

Reflects the ghosts that come to call

Dressed in dusty silken gowns

Dancing in the shadowed sounds

Eyes like echoes not quite there

Should be dead but instead stare

Behind me up stairs they bound

They’re gone when I have turned around

On the walls that seem to cry

Are the monsters finally free?

Oh, what secrets do they hide

Behind the family tapestry?

A handless maiden leads a mare

Through half-deserted bedrooms bare

To her the sunlight filters in

From out behind the red curtains

A little girl in framed attire

Hangs her locks above the fire

She takes your hand, writes her lines

Drench the page with children’s rhymes

In the walls that seem to cry

Are the monsters finally free?

Oh, what secrets do they hide

These bright-lit whispered histories?

Smoking jackets play around

What house of theirs once fallen down

Is crept in ruins behind closed doors

In hallways not gone down before

A lonely reader in the gloom

Hears footsteps in the other room

It’s only children playing ball

In the tarnished mirror in the hall

In the rooms that seem to cry

Are the monsters finally free?

Oh, what secrets do they hide?

Is the only monster me?