We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Archaeopteryx Ultraavantgarda - The Conqueror Worm (Edgar Allan Poe)

from Apskaft Presents: Poems by Apskaft

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Purchasable with gift card

     

lyrics

THE CONQUEROR WORM (Edgar Allan Poe, 1843)

Lo! ’t is 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 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.

credits

from Apskaft Presents: Poems, released November 23, 2012

license

tags

about

Apskaft Sweden

The sound of Apskaft is a collective of DIY avant-garde artists from all over the world, founded in 2007 by Jonas Lind.

contact / help

Contact Apskaft

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like The Conqueror Worm (Edgar Allan Poe), you may also like: