The Conqueror Worm

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 Woe!
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 the 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 
And the angels all pallid and wan 

Uprising unveiling affirm
That the play is the tragedy "Man" 

And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

Biography | Poems | Best Poems | Short Poems | Quotes | Email Poem |

Poems are below...