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.

IV.

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.

V.

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.

IV.

The moaning and groaning,
The sighing and sobbing,
Are quieted now,

With that horrible throbbing

At heart:-ah, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!

V.

The sickness, the nausea,
The pitiless pain,

Have ceased, with the fever

That maddened my brain— With the fever called "living," That burned in my brain.

VI.

And, O! of all tortures

That torture the worst

Has abated-the terrible

Torture of thirst

For the naphthaline river

Of Passion accurst:

I have drunk of a water

That quenches all thirst:

VII.

Of a water that flows

With a lullaby sound,

From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground-

From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.

VIII.

And, ah! let it never
Be foolishly said.

That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;

For man never slept

In a different bed

And, to sleep, you must slumber In just such a bed.

IX.

My tantalised spirit

Here blandly reposes,

Forgetting, or never

Regretting, its roses —

Its old agitations

Of myrtles and roses.

X.

For now, while so quietly

Lying, it fancies

A holier odour

About it, of pansies

A rosemary odour,

Commingled with pansies

With rue and the beautiful

Puritan pansies.

XI.

And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many

A dream of the truth

And the beauty of AnnieDrowned in a bath

Of the tresses of Annie.

XII.

She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,

And then I fell gently

To sleep on her breast—

Deeply to sleep

From the heaven of her breast.

XIII.

When the light was extinguished

She covered me warm,

And she prayed to the angels

To keep me from harm— To the queen of the angels To shield me from harm.