The Conqueror Worm

Lo! ’t is 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 wo!

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