Dreamland

  By a route obscure and lonely,
  Haunted by ill angels only,
  Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
  On a black throne reigns upright,
  I have reached these lands but newly
  From an ultimate dim Thule--
  From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
    Out of SPACE--out of TIME.

  Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
  And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
  With forms that no man can discover
  For the dews that drip all over;
  Mountains toppling evermore
  Into seas without a shore;
  Seas that restlessly aspire,
  Surging, unto skies of fire;
  Lakes that endlessly outspread
  Their lone waters--lone and dead,
  Their still waters--still and chilly
  With the snows of the lolling lily.

  By the lakes that thus outspread
  Their lone waters, lone and dead,--
  Their sad waters, sad and chilly
  With the snows of the lolling lily,--

  By the mountains--near the river
  Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,--
  By the gray woods,--by the swamp
  Where the toad and the newt encamp,--
  By the dismal tarns and pools
    Where dwell the Ghouls,--
  By each spot the most unholy--
  In each nook most melancholy,--

  There the traveller meets aghast
  Sheeted Memories of the past--
  Shrouded forms that start and sigh
  As they pass the wanderer by--
  White-robed forms of friends long given,
  In agony, to the Earth--and Heaven.

  For the heart whose woes are legion
  'Tis a peaceful, soothing region--
  For the spirit that walks in shadow
  'Tis--oh, 'tis an Eldorado!
  But the traveller, travelling through it,
  May not--dare not openly view it;
  Never its mysteries are exposed
  To the weak human eye unclosed;
  So wills its King, who hath forbid
  The uplifting of the fringed lid;
  And thus the sad Soul that here passes
  Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

  By a route obscure and lonely,
  Haunted by ill angels only.

  Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
  On a black throne reigns upright,
  I have wandered home but newly
  From this ultimate dim Thule.


1844





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        Edgar Allan Poe