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