Masque of the Red Death

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