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 Thulé —

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

’T is a peaceful, soothing region;

 

For the spirit that walks in shadow

’T is — oh, ’t is 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 wander'd home but newly

From this ultimate dim Thulé.