THE CONQUEROR WORM.Lo! ’tis a gala nightWithin the lonesome latter years!An angel throng, bewinged, bedightIn veils, and drowned in tears,Sit in a theatre, to seeA play of hopes and fears,While the orchestra breathes fitfullyThe 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 goAt bidding of vast formless thingsThat shift the scenery to and fro,Flapping from out their Condor wingsInvisible Woe!That motley drama—oh, be sureIt shall not be forgot!With its Phantom chased for evermore,By a crowd that seize it not,Through a circle that ever returneth inTo the self-same spot,And much of Madness, and more of Sin,And Horror the soul of the plot.But see, amid the mimic routA crawling shape intrude!A blood-red thing that writhes from outThe scenic solitude!It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangsThe mimes become its food,And the angels sob at vermin fangsIn 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 stormAnd the angels, all pallid and wan,Uprising, unveiling, affirmThat the play is the tragedy, “Man,”And its hero the Conqueror Worm.1838.
Lo! ’tis a gala nightWithin the lonesome latter years!An angel throng, bewinged, bedightIn veils, and drowned in tears,Sit in a theatre, to seeA play of hopes and fears,While the orchestra breathes fitfullyThe 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 goAt bidding of vast formless thingsThat shift the scenery to and fro,Flapping from out their Condor wingsInvisible Woe!That motley drama—oh, be sureIt shall not be forgot!With its Phantom chased for evermore,By a crowd that seize it not,Through a circle that ever returneth inTo the self-same spot,And much of Madness, and more of Sin,And Horror the soul of the plot.But see, amid the mimic routA crawling shape intrude!A blood-red thing that writhes from outThe scenic solitude!It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangsThe mimes become its food,And the angels sob at vermin fangsIn 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 stormAnd the angels, all pallid and wan,Uprising, unveiling, affirmThat the play is the tragedy, “Man,”And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
1838.