The Hero of Our Play

The Hero of Our Play

 

Written in Admiration for Edgar Allan Poe[1]

Who Heroically Explored the Realm of Death

And Spoke to Us of His Journey in a Voice

That Transcends the Ages of Mankind

 

You raged against an iron gate

Until through it, you slipped,

A disembodied page of love

That from life’s book

 

Was clipped

 

You tasted tears the angels wept;

You muttered with the mimes,

 

Who fretted in their helplessness,

And bled in perfect rhymes

 

You writhed within the worm that ate,

But still, the curtains closed;

 

You were the hero of our play,

And this, the poet knows.

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[1] Paris believed that Edgar Alan Poe’s, “The Conqueror Worm,” was among the most important poems written in the English language. He called it the “perfect poem,” referencing it in the tribute above. In 40 magnificent lines, Poe effectively argues that the only thing we know about existence is that we die �" “Everything else is madness, delusion, and religious opinion.”

 

In “The Conqueror Worm,” an audience of helpless angels watches a play performed by a group of mimes. Though they were created in God’s image, the mimes are controlled by mysterious unseen forces. They chase a phantom that they cannot apprehend. In the end, the Conqueror Worm enters and eats the mimes. The curtain comes down, and we are told that the play is the tragedy, “Man,” and Conqueror Worm is its hero.