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(inspired by the work of Edgar Allen Poe) |
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I. Red Death |
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It was a time when life was short |
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Long devastated was the land |
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Never had there ever been |
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A more fatal plague against all man |
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Pungent pain, sudden faintness |
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Your energy begins to fade |
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As you stand there somewhat daunted |
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You know 'Red Death' is on it's way |
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Blood, blood, blood and more blood |
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Profuse bleeding at the pores |
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You watch your blood slowly sizzle |
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As your flesh dissolves some more |
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Screams of anguish, blood still flowing |
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Pollutes the ground a rotten red |
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Your time has come, you must meet your maker |
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As you slip into the valley of the shadow of death |
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II. The Prince's Master Plan |
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All men feared this great disaster |
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But the valiant Prince had the only answer |
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For his majesty and his chosen ones |
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The inception of new life would free them of contagion |
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Magnificent it was this structure of seclusion |
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Surrounded by these walls so massive yet elusive |
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The gates were welded shut impervious to those forsaken |
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Never letting go of the souls that were taken |
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There was beauty, there was wine |
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Ambrosia and sweet nectar |
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Flowing from within |
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All appliances of pleasure |
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Inside the Master-Plan |
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Providing noble lunacy |
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Outside the palace gates |
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'Red Death' just sits and waits for you |
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Narration: |
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It was toward the close of the fifth or |
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sixth month of his seclusion, and while the |
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pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that |
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the Prince Prospreo entertained his thousand |
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friends at a masked ball of the most unusual |
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magnificence... Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) |
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III. The Masquerade including the Twelfth Hour and Return of the Red Death |
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Bizzare it was seven chambers |
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Held this jubilee except for one |
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It stood alone, the western wing |
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Where no one shared it's offerings |
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Blood tinted panes, brazier or fire |
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Projects it's rays |
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A clock stands tall, ominous |
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It warns of death so soon to be |
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So loud, so deep the guests pay heed |
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The dissonant ring of ebony |
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The crowd goes pale as darkness |
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Shrouds the maskers in their revelry |
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Then as the echos ceased |
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A light laughter spread through the assembly |
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And all is well |
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Until the next chiming of old ebony |
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The ebony clock struck the twelfth hour |
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And everyting ceased as the revellers cowered |
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The pendulum swings all still, all silent |
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Save the voice of old ebony |
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As the last chime died and sunk into silence |
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Soon it was felt a presence so strange |
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Tall and gaunt who is this masked figure |
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Shrouded in habiliments of the grave? |
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His blood splattered mask bore a striking resemblence |
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The countenance of a rigid corpse |
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He stalked to and fro in a slow, solemn movement |
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Enraging the Duke, invasion of his sanctuary |
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'Seize him, unmask him, ' commanded the prince |
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'Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? |
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You'll hang at sunrise! ' |
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Not a person came forth it seemed like all was lost |
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As the intruder make his way unimpeded |
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An anon he went on trugged through each chamber |
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Where the music once swelled and the dreams lived on and on |
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The prince in pursuit dagger drawn aloft |
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As the figure retreats to the seventh chamber |
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He suddenly turns, a piercing sharp cry |
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Now the Prince lay dead in the hall of the velvet... |
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Then summoning the wild courage of despair, |
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A throng of revellers at once threw themselves |
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Into the black apartment, and seizing the mummer, |
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Whose tall dark figure stood erect and motionless |
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Within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped |
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In unutterable horror at finding the grave |
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Cerements and corpse-like mask, which they |
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Handled with so violent a rudeness, untenated |
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By any tangible form. |
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And now was acknowlegded the presence |
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Of the Red Death. He had come as a thief |
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In the night and one by one droppd the revellers |
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In the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, |
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And died each in the despairing posture of his fall. |
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As the life of the ebony clock went out |
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With that the last of the gay. |
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And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness |
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And Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all... |
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Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) |
