02 - Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe, a pivotal figure in American literature, was not just an accomplished writer, editor, and literary critic; he was also a master of the macabre and the mysterious. Renowned for his haunting poetry and chilling short stories, Poe is celebrated as a key voice of Romanticism in the United States. He pioneered the detective fiction genre and made significant contributions to the early development of science fiction. Join us as we delve into the eerie and captivating world of Poes imagination. - Summary by Wikipedia

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe read for LibriVox
dot Org by Burt Culver, May twenty seventeen, Los Angeles,
Lo tis a gallant knight within the lonesome latter years,
an angel throng, bewinged, bedight in veils, and drowned in tears.
Sit in a theater to see a play of hopes
and fears, while the orchestra breathe fitfully. The music of

(00:21):
the spheres mimes in the form of God on high,
mutter and mumble low, and hither and thither fly near 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

(00:42):
chaste for evermore by crowd that sees 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 rise with

(01:04):
mortal pangs, the mimes become its food, and seraph sob
at vermin fangs in human gore, imbued out out at
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
and veiling, affirm that the play is the tragedy man,

(01:26):
and its hero the conqueror Worm. End of poem. This
recording is in the public domain.