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 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.
-Edgar Allen Poe