The Goat

Let me tell you a story of whitest fear
A tale of terror inchoate.
In your madness to stop you'll bite off your ears
To silence the telling of ... the goat.

A spirit cursed to walk the earth
Barred from its rest below.
Death, the power that gave it birth,
And death is all it knows.

You'll hear at first its low dread moans.
What? No, of course there is no bleating.
This phantom wails the bassest tones,
A sign your grasp on life is fleeting.

A cloak of phosphor lights its frame.
What? Horns upon its head?
I suppose if there had been some game
Or a trophy hung over its death bed?

Where was I? The goat, oh yes, the goat.
An apparition from the grave.
What? On four feet like a stoat?
If you saw it you would not be so brave.

Its coming heralded by the rattle of chains,
And the very air grows stiller and colder.
If any of you fools had any brains
You'd run for your lives if you want to grow older.

They hate the living, the disinterred,
They hate those who wronged them in life the most.
Hang on a minute, I must have misheard.
Apparently it's not a goat, it's a ghost.