I just made a 2600 mile move to Portland. I've made major moves before, with larger distances than that. But without fail, every time I do, it takes me ages to be able to sleep properly. I've been getting about two to three hours a night for about 2 weeks, and I'm about to keel over from exhaustion. So please tell me a good bedtime story, or sing me a lullaby, before I go insane.
2
nobodaddy
Burlington, VT
August 2003
SEP 18, 2003 09:21 PM
THE CONQUEROR WORM
by Edgar Allan Poe
1843
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 dramaoh, 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.
Outout are the lightsout 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.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
PhillipeTheOtter
Portland, OR
OLD SKOOL
SEP 18, 2003 09:11 PM