Edgar Allen Poe

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 dew that drips all over;

mountains toppling evermore

Into seas without a shore;

Seas that restlessly aspire,

Surging, unto skys of fire

Lakes that endlessly outspread

there 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

Murmering lowly,murmering 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,-

Buy each spot the most unholy,-

In each nook most melancholy,-

There the traveler meets aghast

Sheeted Memories of the Past-

Shrouded forms that start and sig

As they past the wanderer by-

White-robed forms of friends long given,

In agony, to the earth

And Heaven.





For the hear whose woes are legion

'Tis a peaceful, soothing region-

For the spirit who walks in shadow

'Tis-Oh, 'tis an Eldorado!

But the traveler, traveling through it,

may not-dare not openly view it;

Never it's mysteries are exposed

To the weak human eye unclosed;

So wills it's 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 reached these lands but newly

From an ultimate dim Thule.