Jingle Jingle

The midnight bells were jingling—
mere chimes, if one is strict.
They marked the stroke of twelve o’clock—
a point I won’t contradict.

They roused me from my proper rest,
and summoned me from bed;
a scholar should be sleeping,
not rising with the dead.

I peered into the outer dark;
the evidence was grim:
a pale hand tapped the window—
from the inside.