She shivered, lying upon her bed,
As the shadows crept over the room,
And she wept in the dark at the ominous tread
She fancied she heard in the gloom.

She trembled, staring straight ahead,
At the figures that over her loomed,
And she sensed with a deep and despairing dread
The form that under her bed lay entombed.

“Why… why must it be dark?” She said.
“Daddy, why won’t You turn on the light?
And why must I stay in this room, in this bed
When the monsters haunt it at night?

“Why, when I lie here,” she desperately pled,
“And the dark hovers over me near
Do I feel, past denying, all the terrors I’ve fled
When You tell me there’s nothing to fear?

“I see and I hear them!  And Daddy, I feel…
I fear to say it, but it’s true…
I can see, hear, and feel them, and they seem so real –
They seem much more real than You.”

At first only silence followed the end
Of the cries of the night-haunted child,
But her Father heard, and quietly listened
As question upon question she piled.

Then out of the dark and shadows of dread
His reply through the blackness came,
And she heard His voice, lying curled on her bed
As quietly He spoke her name.

Though He answered not the questions
The phantoms had stirred up with fear,
He answered her heart when He took her hand
And whispered, “My child, I am here.”