The
Conqueror Worm
by Edgar
Allan Poe
(1843)
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.