The Masque of the Red Death reworked
The Red Death was a plague without peer
Once it's acquired, sure death is near
If the symptoms did show, better make quick penance
For the Reaper would greet you in thirty minutes
Prince Prospero was a ruler both gay and shrewd
No plague or death would spoil his mood
1000 nobles summoned, all hale and hearty
Into the fortress for a lasting party
The fortress itself was of a design most grand
It's thick iron gates welded shut by hand
The highest walls that no man could scale
Assuring all that death's bell would not knell
Five or six months of nonstop revelry
Wine and clowns and all sorts of devilry
The Prince decided for his guests this day
To present to all a masquerade
The halls were adorned to the Prince's design
There was plenty on which one's eyes could dine
The revelers experienced a taste of heaven
Gazing at the rooms in which there were seven
The first two chambers were purple and blue
With stained glass windows of matching hue
Orange, green, violet, and white the next four
The seventh was black, of this we'll hear more
On it's walls did hang a velvet most black
No light did shine save the window in back
It bathed the room in a shade of eerie red
That would chill the hearts of even the dead
The last adornment was an ebony clock
It's chime so grim, it seemed to mock
It filled all ears with a sense of foreboding
It reminded them all of mortality's goading
The revelers were adorned in designs most grotesque
Attired in the absurd, clothed in the arabesque
There was glitter and fancy from tip to top
Pausing brief periods at the sound of the clock
On the final midnight, the clock did sound
The revelers ceased as if they'd been bound
For in their midst a new guest had appeared
How he'd arrived filled them all with fear
His costume was like that of a corpse in grave
He was tall and pale and gaunt, this knave
His visage was like death, the ultimate partisan
So lifelike it was, it'd fool the best artisan
Prince Prospero had filled with terror and rage
He wondered who dare insult him on his stage
He ordered for the man to be seized and hung
But so ghastly the ghoul, his pursuers were none
The stranger then skulked from room to room
Undaunted and uncaring of his impending doom
For the Prince pursued with his dagger drawn
To pierce it's heart and hang it at dawn
The stranger did stop in the blackest room
In front of the ebony clock, he did loom
He faced his pursuer, now short of breath
The Prince once fell, prostrate in death
The crowd, riled by fear into frenzy and anger
Did seize the gaunt ghoul unaware of their danger
They peeled back his masque and found no man
For the Red Death there did intangibly stand
Acknowledging him with their last final breath
Their blood did flow unto their death
And with the passing of this flock
The ebony clock on the wall did stop