52 lines
1.7 KiB
Plaintext
52 lines
1.7 KiB
Plaintext
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1843
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THE CONQUEROR WORM
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by Edgar Allan Poe
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Lo! 'tis a gala night
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Within the lonesome latter years!
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An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
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In veils, and drowned in tears,
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Sit in a theatre, to see
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A play of hopes and fears,
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While the orchestra breathes fitfully
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The music of the spheres.
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Mimes, in the form of God on high,
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Mutter and mumble low,
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And hither and thither fly-
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Mere puppets they, who come and go
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At bidding of vast formless things
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That shift the scenery to and fro,
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Flapping from out their Condor wings
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Invisible Woe!
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That motley drama- oh, be sure
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It shall not be forgot!
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With its Phantom chased for evermore,
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By a crowd that seize it not,
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Through a circle that ever returneth in
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To the self-same spot,
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And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
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And Horror the soul of the plot.
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But see, amid the mimic rout
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A crawling shape intrude!
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A blood-red thing that writhes from out
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The scenic solitude!
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It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs
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The mimes become its food,
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And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
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In human gore imbued.
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Out- out are the lights- out all!
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And, over each quivering form,
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The curtain, a funeral pall,
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Comes down with the rush of a storm,
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While the angels, all pallid and wan,
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Uprising, unveiling, affirm
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That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
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And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
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-THE END-
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