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 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 grey 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 unholly,-
In each nook most melancholly,-
There the traveler meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past-
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
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 peacefull, 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.