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- 1844
- DREAMLAND
- by Edgar Allan Poe
-
- 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 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 tears 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 grey 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.
-
-
- -THE END-
-