Text: Charles W. Kent (notes) Robert A. Stewart (variants) (ed. J. A. Harrison), “Notes to The Conqueror Worm,” The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. VII: Poems (1902), 7:204

[page 204:]

Variations of Graham from the text.

I. 2 years! (—) 3 An angel (A mystic) 4 veils, (o. c.) 5 theatre, (o. c.) II. 5 formless (shadowy) III. 7 Madness, (o. c.) IV. 7 seraphs (the angels) V. 2 quivering (dying) 5 While (And) 5 angels (seraphs) 5 pallid (haggard) 7 tragedy, (o. c).

Variations of Broadway Journal, I. 21, from the text.

I. 3 angel (mystic) 3 bewinged (bewing’d) 4 drowned (drown’d) III. 11. drama — (! —) 3 chased (chas’d) IV. 7 seraphs (the angels) V. 5 While (And) 8 And its (Its).

EDITOR’S NOTE.

A melodramatic picture in five stanzas corresponding to the five acts of a tragedy, of which the theme is Man and the hero the Conqueror Worm. Poe refers to the Conqueror Worm as a personification in “The Premature Burial,” “The Colloquy of Monos and Una,” etc. Cf. “The Masque of the Red Death.”