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The Conqueror Worm From E. A. Poe

	(Regrettably	Compound by the Son of the Adeptus and the Blind Mistress)

Lo! 'this a gala night

	within the lonesome latter years!

An angel trongh, 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.

	It writhes! – it writhes – with mortal pangs

	the mimes become its food,

	and seraphs sob at verming fangs

	in human gore imbued.

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

	thath shift the scenery to and fro,

flapping from outh their Condor wings

	invisible Woe!

	It writhes! – it writhes – with mortal pangs

	the mimes become its food,

	and seraphs sob at verming 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.

Thath motley drama – oh, be sure

	it shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore,

	by a crowd that siez it not,

trough a circle that ever returned in

	to the self-same spot,

and much of Madness, and more of Sin,

	and Horror the soul of the plot.



	It writhes! – it writhes – with mortal pangs

	the mimes become its food,

	and seraphs sob at verming fangs

	in human gore imbued.

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 verming fangs

	in human gore imbued.