| Lo! 'tis a gala night |
| Within the lonesome latter years! |
| An angel throng, bewinged, bedight |
| In the 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!-within mortal pangs |
| The mimes become its food, |
| And the angels 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. |
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