Stolat.pl

Lo! 'tis 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 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.