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Lo! It is a gala night

Within the 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 roughly

The music of the spheres

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither, oh and thither fly —

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to-fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

Invisible, Oh Woe!

That motley drama! — oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for ever more,

By a crowd seize it not

Salve Deus Magnus Vermis!

Devoratrix nostrum cordis!

Nos quaerere nam permis

Ut sint servitori vobis!

Through a circle that ever returneth

Into the self-same spot,

And much of Madness, and more of Sin

And Horror the soul of 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 angels sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued

Nos - filii ex libero

Et numquid universali,

Quid facere quod anima

Regendisque ex stellis,

Et

Gloria terrena dulcis

Vermis-victum dedit nos

Gloria amore fetus luce et tenebris, oh!

Worm in fiery crown

Rules this world of light

Kiss His knees and vow

Glorify His might!

Out are the lights — out all!

And o'er 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;

And the demons, all ruby and fanned

They abandon, condemn, disaffirm

That their play is the comedy "Man"

And its king is the Conqueror Worm!