Architecture

Lo! Tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!

An Angel throng, bewinged, bedight

In veils, and drownd 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 Wo!

That motley dram - oh be shure

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 crowling 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.