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.

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.