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Lo! 'tis agala night |
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Within the lonesome latter years! |
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An angel throng, bewinged, bedight |
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In veils, and drowned in tears, |
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Sit in a theatre, to see |
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A play of hopes and fears, |
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While the orchestra breathes fitfully |
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The music of the spheres. |
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Mimes, in form of |
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God on high, |
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Mutter and mumbled low, |
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And hither and thither fly |
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Mere puppets they,who come and go |
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At biding of vast formless things |
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That shift the scenary to and fro, |
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Flapping from out of their |
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Condor wings |
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Invisible |
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Woe! The motley drama-oh, be sure |
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It shall not be forgot! |
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With its Phantom chased for evermore, |
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By a crowd that seize it not, |
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Through a circle that ever returneth in |
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To the self-same spot, |
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And much of |
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Madness, and more of |
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Sin, And Horror the soul of the plot. |
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But see, among the mimic rout |
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A crawling shape intrude! |
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A blood red thing that writhes from out |
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The scenic solitude! |
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It writhes! |
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It writhes! |
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With mortal pangs |
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The mimes become its food, |
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And the angels sob at vermin fangs |
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In human gore imbuted. |
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Out-out are the lights-out all! |
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And, over each quivering form, |
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The curtain, the funeral pall, |
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Comes down with the rush of a storm, |
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And the angels, all pallid and wan, |
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Uprising, unveiling, affirm |
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That the play is the tragedy "Man" and its hero the |
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Conqueor worm. |
