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 mumbe 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 out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!

That motley dram ‒ oh be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With it s phantom cheased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not
Through a circle that ever returneth in
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 mimic become it s food
And the angels sob ar virmin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out-out are the lights-out all!
And, over each quevering form
The curtain, the funeral pall
Comes down with the rush of a storm
And the angels, all palid and wan
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
And the play is the tragedy, "Man"
And it s hero is the Conqueror Worm.