Testo: Guilthee. Lustration. The Conqueror Worm From E. A. Poe.

Lo! 'this a gala night
within the lonesome latter years!
An angel trongh, 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.

It writhes! ? it writhes ? with mortal pangs
the mimes become its food,
and seraphs sob at verming fangs
in human gore imbued.

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
thath shift the scenery to and fro,
flapping from outh their Condor wings
invisible Woe!

It writhes! ? it writhes ? with mortal pangs
the mimes become its food,
and seraphs sob at verming 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.

Thath motley drama ? oh, be sure
it shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
by a crowd that siez it not,

trough a circle that ever returned in
to the self-same spot,
and much of Madness, and more of Sin,
and Horror the soul of the plot.

It writhes! ? it writhes ? with mortal pangs
the mimes become its food,
and seraphs sob at verming fangs
in human gore imbued.

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 verming fangs
in human gore imbued.