Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/239

 THE POET 219 �by herself not many days before." The poem repre- sents Ligeia's nadir of hopelessness, against which she protests in impassioned prayer and with unconquer- able will. The whole story is planned to give the lie to the materialism and hopeless finality of The Con- queror Worm. See Ligeia, page 254.] �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, ��� �