And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows
see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid
river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh—but smile
no more.
1838.
* * * *
*
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 Wo!
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 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.
1838
* * * *
*
There are some qualities—some
incorporate things,
That have a double life, which
thus is made
A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced
in solid and shade.
There is a twofold Silence—sea
and shore—
Body and soul. One dwells
in lonely places,
Newly with grass o’ergrown;
some solemn graces,
Some human memories and tearful lore,
Render him terrorless: his name’s
“No More.”
He is the corporate Silence: dread
him not!
No power hath he of evil in
himself;
But should some urgent fate (untimely
lot!)
Bring thee to meet his shadow
(nameless elf,
That haunteth the lone regions where hath
trod
No foot of man), commend thyself to God!
1840
* * * *
*
