Dream-land

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.