The Conqueror Worm

Lo! 'tis a gala night         Within the lonesome latter years!       An angel throng, bewinged, bedight         In veils, and drowned in tears,       Sit in a theatre, to see         A play of hopes and fears,       While the orchestra breathes fitfully         The music of the spheres.       Mimes, in the form of God on high,         Mutter and mumble low,       And hither and thither fly-         Mere puppets they, who come and go       At bidding of vast formless things         That shift the scenery to and fro,       Flapping from out their Condor wings         Invisible Woe!       That motley drama- oh, be sure         It shall not be forgot!       With its Phantom chased for evermore,         By a crowd that seize it not,       Through a circle that ever returneth in         To the self-same spot,       And much of Madness, and more of Sin,         And Horror the soul of the plot.       But see, amid the mimic rout         A crawling shape intrude!       A blood-red thing that writhes from out         The scenic solitude!       It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs         The mimes become its food,       And seraphs sob at vermin fangs         In human gore imbued.       Out- out are the lights- out all!         And, over each quivering form,       The curtain, a funeral pall,         Comes down with the rush of a storm,       While the angels, all pallid and wan,         Uprising, unveiling, affirm       That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"         And its hero the Conqueror Worm.