Dream-Land

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 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
O! it 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 wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.

Fonte (v. 8): Carpeaux, O. M. 2011. História da literatura ocidental, vol. 3, 4ª ed. Brasília, Senado Federal. Poema publicado em 1844.