LO! ’t is a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

In veils, and drowned in tears,

5

Sit in a theatre, to see

A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

[[v]]

The music of the spheres.

 

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

10

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly —

Mere puppets they, who come and go

[[v]]

At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro,

15

[[n]]

Flapping from out their Condor wings

[[n]]

Invisible Wo!

 

That motley drama — oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore,

20

By a crowd that seize it not, [page 106:]

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.

 

25

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

30

The mimes become its food,

[[v]]

And seraphs sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued.

 

Out — out are the lights — out all!

[[v]]

And, over each quivering form,

35

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

[[v]]

While the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

[[n]]

That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”

40

[[v]]

And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

(1843)