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.





