The Conquerer Worm by Edgar Allan Poe

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One of my favorite memories of scaring
myself as a child was getting a compilation

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book of Edgar Allan Poe stories from
my elementary school library. It brought me

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so much fear and so much excitement. I remember running home from school with

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that book in my backpack as the
sky was dark and a storm was coming.

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I was in my childhood living room, but I wasn't alone. I

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had a pizza and the books of
Poe. Every so often I'll bring you

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a tale of Poe, and I
hope it gives you that scary fun sense,

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just the same as it does for
me. When the clock strikes midnight,

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the story will begin. The Conqueror
Worm by Edgar Allan Poe Lo tis

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a gala night within the lonesome latter
years. A mystic throng, bewinged,

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bedight in veils, and drowned in
tears, sit in a theater to see

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a play of hopes and fears.
While the orchestra breathes fitfully the music of

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the spheres mimes in the form of
God on high. Mutter and mumble low,

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and hither and thither fly mere puppets, they who come and go at

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bidding of vast shadowy things that shift
the scenery to and fro, flapping from

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out their condor wings invisible woe that
motley drama. Oh, be sure it

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shall not be forgot with its phantom
chaste for evermore by a crowd that sees

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it not through a circle, that
ever returneth in to the self same spot,

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And much of madness, and more
of sin and horror the soul of

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the plot. But see amid the
mimic rot, a crawling shape intrude,

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a blood red thing that writhes from
out the scenic solitude. It writhes,

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it writhes with mortal pangs. The
minds become its food, and the angels

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sob at vermin fangs in human gore
imbued out out are the lights out all

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and over each dying form. The
curtain, a funeral pall comes down with

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the rush of a storm. The
seraph's all haggard and wan uprising unveiling,

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affirm that the play is the tragedy
man its hero, the conqueror, were