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 ceasde
  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...