Lo! 'tis a gala night <br /> Within the lonesome latter years! <br /> An angel throng, bewinged, bedight <br /> In veils, and drowned in tears, <br /> Sit in a theatre, to see <br /> A play of hopes and fears, <br /> While the orchestra breathes fitfully <br /> The music of the spheres. <br /> <br /> Mimes, in the form of God on high, <br /> Mutter and mumble low, <br /> And hither and thither fly- <br /> Mere puppets they, who come and go <br /> At bidding of vast formless things <br /> That shift the scenery to and fro, <br /> Flapping from out their Condor wings <br /> Invisible Woe! <br /> <br /> That motley drama- oh, be sure <br /> It shall not be forgot! <br /> With its Phantom chased for evermore, <br /> By a crowd that seize it not, <br /> Through a circle that ever returneth in <br /> To the self-same spot, <br /> And much of Madness, and more of Sin, <br /> And Horror the soul of the plot. <br /> <br /> But see, amid the mimic rout <br /> A crawling shape intrude! <br /> A blood-red thing that writhes from out <br /> The scenic solitude! <br /> It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs <br /> The mimes become its food, <br /> And seraphs sob at vermin fangs <br /> In human gore imbued. <br /> <br /> Out- out are the lights- out all! <br /> And, over each quivering form, <br /> The curtain, a funeral pall, <br /> Comes down with the rush of a storm, <br /> While the angels, all pallid and wan, <br /> Uprising, unveiling, affirm <br /> That the play is the tragedy, 'Man,' <br /> And its hero the Conqueror Worm.<br /><br />Edgar Allan Poe<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-conqueror-worm-2/
