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 the hero, the Conqueror Worm.<br /><br />Edgar Allan Poe<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-conqueror-worm/
